


a fool there was

by byronicmaiden



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Love Never Dies - Lloyd Webber, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Black and Grey Morality, Enemies With Benefits, Hate Sex, M/M, Seduction, Unhappy Ending, Unreliable Narrator, a fuck you to andrew lloyd webber, did i really rewrite the entirety of love never dies?, erik is also the worst, lets just assume everyone in this is the worst, raoul is the worst, yes i did
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2018-12-18 18:44:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 24,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11880546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/byronicmaiden/pseuds/byronicmaiden
Summary: The fool was stripped to his foolish hide(Even as you and I!)Which she might have seen when she threw him aside—(But it isn’t on record the lady tried)So some of him lived but the most of him died—(Even as you and I!)—The Vampire, Rudyard Kiplingor, an e/r rewrite of love never dies.





	1. arrival

The steady, slow rocking of the boat easily lulled Christine to sleep. The day had been frantic yet silent. Unspoken anger just below the surface. Christine tightly coiled on the bed, a book in her lap, silent. Gustave stirring impatiently in his separate room next door, refusing to sleep when Christine was exhausted half-dead. She fell asleep minutes after lying down.

Raoul didn't rest so easily.

It had to be 3:00 AM by now, maybe even 4:00. The moon, full and shining, illuminating the black sea the massive ship lazily rocked on.

Raoul looked at Christine, tightly curled in on herself, face white as the sheets beneath her, everything tinted light blue in the moonlight. She stirred slightly, reaching for the covers. He grabbed the corner and pulled them over her, hiding her body. He watched silently and couldn't help but wonder what she dreamt of. This woman he once thought he knew so well. He wondered if she felt the same about him, if she saw past the role he played, saw beneath the surface. She always could. She would've made a brilliant detective, always seeing things so straight and clear. Never fooled by shadows and tricks. She had a face you couldn't help but want to confess your darkest secrets to.

Tomorrow would surely be frantic and silent, too. Christine angry about something, dissatisfied about something, upset about something, but refusing to say what. _I'm fine, darling, I'm just tired, really_. Gustave eager and excited about something horribly mundane. His head ached just thinking about it.

They'd smile for reporters who would write headlines they thought were clever, he'd put his arm around her and wait for the camera to flash when they really, really had somewhere they needed to be.

He didn't want more pictures with her. He didn't want to pose with his arm around her again, the motion engraved in his mind. He didn't want to run through the same conversations they had everyday, sit silently and deal with each others irritating habits for one more minute. He just wanted her gone. It was horrible to feel that kind of disdain for the woman you married, the mother of your child, but he did. He didn't hate her. He could never hate her. But he wished he could wake up and find her disappeared, vanished, Gustave gone too. A fresh start.

* * *

 New York City was hideous, sullen and gray, stinking and ugly. Heavy clouds hanging low enough for towering buildings to scrape their undersides, chimneys constantly puffing out thick gray smog. It made Raoul wish he smoked. It would be a good escape from daily activities. He knew Christine hated the smell. Maybe she'd try to kiss him less.

Things had gone about how he'd expected. Shuffled from place to place, from crowded dock to shiny hotel to a theater with peeling pink paint. It was mostly a blur of city lights and camera flashes and Meg Giry's whining. Gustave's excited flittering. Madame Giry's shouting. Christine's bony arm stiff in his grip. He wanted a drink, and even as he thought it, he scolded himself for his predictability. He was, in the eyes of a professional, an alcoholic. He supposed he'd been an alcoholic for the past seven years, picking up the habit when the last of his siblings, his oldest sister, the mean one, had died in a shipwreck. (It was the same year his wife stopped sleeping in the same bed as him. A mutual decision.) His youngest sister had went in childbirth. He remembered the oldest made a comment about how weak-willed she'd always been at her funeral. His older brother, Phillipe, the closest thing he ever had to a father, died in an ungraceful accident the night of _Don Juan Triumphant_ , just that quick. Slipped on a slimy riverbank and smashed his head on a rock while looking for his lost little brother. That was one thing Raoul forbid himself from thinking about.

He ducked into the first bar he saw, his bare hands stinging from the city's cold air. It was autumn but it felt like winter. He wondered how anyone in New York kept track of the seasons when life was one never-ending gray haze.

It was small and desolate, smoke filling the air, hardly any patrons. Two in a corner booth. One asleep at a table. All men, all looking worse for wear than him. One man played the piano messily in the back. Was the whole damn city that obsessed with music?

He sat at the empty bar counter and put his head in his hands, staring at the dirty floor. He tried not to think about Christine and and Gustave and Meg and Madame Giry and Erik, above all. Always Erik, following them everywhere like a virus, growing inside them like a tumor. Erik's piss-yellow eyes and rotten smell, like filthy stagnant water, and his sharp teeth that made everything he said come out a snarl. Truthfully, Raoul was shocked he was even still alive. Whenever he thought of Erik, he thought of him with slit wrists or a bullet in his mouth or water in his lungs. And he tried to think of Erik as little as possible. It had been a comforting touchstone, to think about the man who ruined his life with his head bashed in. It was something to hold onto over the past ten years and just like that, with Madame Giry's two words, _It's him_ , gone.

A flowered brooch with plump purple petals came into view on the ground. It gently settled directly in front of his feet. He knelt down and plucked it up, rising to return it to the careless lady who dropped it.

It was him. Erik. Again.

He dropped the brooch back to the ground, scrambling for words. The piano seemed to be growing louder. Erik just smiled.

"How rude of you. Leaving my mother's brooch on this filthy floor? Not very gentlemanly, I must say."

Raoul blinked and gagged on his words. Erik stared, unblinking, eyes like two marbles screwed into a dolls head.

"Pick it up." He demanded.

"Christine knows I'm here."

Erik scoffed. "What? You think I'm going to kill you? In front of all these upstanding members of society?" He gestured to the sleeping man.

Raoul said nothing, just clenched his jaw, nervous.

"Now, pick it up, please." Erik said through tight teeth.

Raoul bent down, picking up the brooch, keeping his eyes on Erik the whole time. He stood up and shoved the brooch against Erik's chest. "There. Happy?"

Nodding, Erik placed his hand over Raoul's and pulled the brooch from his grip.

"What are you doing here?"

"I should ask you the same thing. This place is so unsavory, wouldn't you say? And besides, this doesn't seem like your part of town, but then again-"

"In _New York_. In _America_. Why are you following us?"

Erik huffed, irritated. "I'm not following you. If anything, you're following me. I live here. I have to live somewhere, don't I?"

"No," Raoul said. "I'd prefer if you didn't live at all."

Erik narrowed his eyes. "That's not very polite."

Raoul folded his arms. He wondered why no one was making a fuss over Erik's presence. He tended to draw attention everywhere he went. He didn't exactly blend in, glowing white mask and heavy black coat. Raoul noted he ditched his old cloak and hat for something slightly more casual. Slightly.

Erik sat onto the stool next to Raoul's. "I've been watching you, Raoul. Since you came to my city. May I call you Raoul, Monsieur de Chagny?"

"No."

"Well, Raoul, as I was saying, before you so rudely interrupted me- have you lost your manners as well as your fortune, sobriety, and family?- I at first was unsure why you were visiting places such as this. Places that cater to a certain crowd." He eyed the two male drinkers who were pressed against each other in their booth. "At first, I assumed you were simply lost. You get lost so easily, Raoul. You should be lead on a leash." He folded his arms and leaned against the bar.

"You're ridiculous. Ridiculous and pathetic. Scrambling for things to insult. I see you haven't changed. I simply don't know my way around your city. I stopped at the first place I saw."

"You are a cliché," Erik said, ignoring his excuse. Which was probably for the best, as it was a poorly-crafted lie, and if Erik had really been watching him, he certainly knew that. "You're a pathetic, poorly-written cliché. I have read more horrid operas and plays than you could imagine and have never come across someone as tired and trite as you. Dutiful househusband who yearns for the company of men. You're pitiful."

"And you're disgusting. Your mind is as black as your heart."

Erik shrugged simply. "I would rather be disgusting than a liar to myself and my family." He said. There was that snarl. "How is your family, anyways?" He leaned close. His breath was hot, smelled like smoke and more than a few dead teeth. "How is your wife?"

Raoul's head shot up. "Don't talk about her. You've no right. She still has nightmares about you, did you know that? She was just a child and you ruined her. You poisoned her."

Erik's chin was aimed high, like he was proud. "Did I?"

"Yes. Ridiculous of me to think you held any responsibility for your awful actions, you petty, selfish child." He smacked several crumpled dollars on the counter and finished his whiskey with one backwards throw of his head. He stood from his stool to leave, but Erik grabbed his forearm, holding him in place. He was a surprisingly strong but bony thing. Strength motivated by pure hatred, Raoul figured.

"Wait. I have something I want to give you."

"You have nothing I could possibly want."

"You and I both know that's not entirely true, is it?" His nails dug through Raoul's shirt and into his flesh. Raoul tried not to wince. "I would like to discuss a trade, of sorts. Between you and I."

"No," Raoul said, voice slipping into a growl. "I want nothing from you, do you understand? And if you come anywhere near my family, I will not hesitate to protect them from you."

"Because you were always so successful in that before."

Raoul narrowed his eyes and pulled his arm from Erik's grip.

"I wouldn't have to if it weren't for you. Now, not that I haven't enjoyed this, but I have a life to get back to."

"I'm sure you do," Erik said, calm and collected even as Raoul angrily stormed past him. "I hope you enjoy your stay in New York, _Monsieur de Chagny_." He called while lazily plucking the petals, one by one, from his brooch.


	2. proposal

Coney Island stood out against the dull labyrinth of New York, colorful as candy. Faded candy, cracked into shards, but still. A theater with dirty pink paint, like strawberry ice cream, that was supposed to look lively but just looked old. A bright sign that read _Phantsma_ , the parks name, in all caps. Clever.

They were scheduled to stay in New York a week and a half. Longer than preferable, but the time was needed for Christine to rehearse and for word to get out about her performance, build up excitement. That's what Christine and Meg said, at least.

He had seen Meg Giry's shiny poster on the ride up, a painting of her in a pale blue robe holding a microphone, recognized her face but didn't bother saying anything. Christine met up with her on their first visit to the theater, squealed with excitement, hugging and fawning over Little Meg Grown Up, gasping about how mature she looked. She looked like a little girl trying to be sexy, or a grown woman trying to look youthful. Hard to tell.

"…and I'll be performing next Saturday evening. Is that right, Madame? I'm no good with dates."

Madame Giry nodded, looked over the score- obviously Erik's doing, but no one acknowledged it- and put her hand on Christine's shoulder.

"What?" Meg emerged from backstage, pinning her hair back in a ponytail. She wore a blue dress that hung from her body loosely, arms jutting out like tree branches. She had the bony frame of a girl who ate rarely and overworked herself daily. "No, that's a mistake. I perform on Saturday. I always perform on Saturday. Right, Mama?" She said, looking to her mother for confirmation.

"Meg, I think you can share the spotlight for one night. Christine will not be in town for long-"

"And I'm always around, right?" She asked, crossing her arms, mouth twisted into a frown. "Why can't she sing any other night? What's she so busy doing?"

"If Meg doesn't want me performing on her night," Christine started, voice hesitant, "I'd be glad to any other day this week."

"No," Madame Giry shot. "Meg, you are acting like a child. Christine will sing on Saturday. I don't want to hear anymore about it. Alright?"

"No!" Meg banged her fist on the table beside her, making Christine and Raoul both jump. "It's not alright. It's not alright at all. It isn't fair. Why can she just waltz in and steal my role?"

Madame Giry grabbed her daughter by the wrist, tried to pull her away from Raoul and Christine. "Meg, I think you need to calm down." Meg shoved at her, yanked her arm from her grip.

"It's not fair! It's mine!" She looked directly at Christine, eyes wide and angry. Her voice teetered on the edge of a sob. "I worked for that spot, I deserve it, it's mine. Why do you get everything that's mine?" She shouted and threw a bundle of score pages to the ground. Madame Giry grabbed her, held her down in an awkward, stiff hug, like the motion was new to her. Meg buried her face in her mothers shoulder and wailed. Christine stood, silent and shocked.

Unnoticed, Raoul slowly backed away from the scene, then turned and started sprinting out of the theater. He didn't have the energy to deal with that. When Christine and Meg danced side-by-side, identically dressed, Raoul had thought them completely interchangeable. But Meg was nothing like Christine, who had accepted tiny, silent roles with dignity. She was, however, perhaps a bit like Erik. The nastiness, the jealousy, the screaming. _Why do you get everything that's mine?_ He suddenly remembered a story Christine told him years earlier: Christine had fallen asleep at rehearsal and Meg hacked her ponytail off with her mother's sewing shears, leaving Christine's hair shoulder-length and scraggly. Told her she'd seen insects in it, when really, she'd done it just to do it. Jealous of her long curls. Ten years with Erik would turn even the most decent person pretty nasty. He shuddered, thinking about what it could do to someone like that.

* * *

Hours after Madame Giry had dragged her hysteric daughter to her dressing room, after Christine robotically rehearsed, Meg apologized with a hug and silent crying. Christine accepted graciously, hugging Meg tightly, either not seeing she was faking or just not caring. The two had went out to catch up and celebrate their reunion. Raoul was not invited. Not that he was upset, he would've said no anyways. He didn't like Meg, hadn't like her as a child, certainly didn't like her as an adult. The kind of woman he'd promised himself he'd never marry. Judging by her still-intact maiden name, no one else had either. The men of New York were smart, he supposed. He wondered what sort of wife she'd be: Attentive and loving? Bored and unfaithful? Nagging and angry? Or silent and stiff, like Christine? He never wondered that kind of thing until he was married. People changed so quickly after they said I do.

Their room, a three room suite with a balcony that overlooked the ocean, was unsettlingly silent. Gustave was asleep, or at least was pretending to be. He kept meaning to put on the radio or one of those old records on the bookshelf, but never did.

He walked clumsily to the balcony, dizzy from whiskey, and pushed open the glass doors. The night was stinging cold. He ignored it. The whiskey kept him warm. He looked at the gray, dirty beach and thought about how much more beautiful Paris was. The whole city was underwhelming compared to his home. He wondered why anyone would visit willingly.

"Where is your wife tonight, Monsieur de Chagny?"

Raoul spun around. He couldn't see where the voice came from and didn't need to. He reached into the darkness. swiped at the air as if Erik were a pesky fly and gripped the balcony railing, suddenly afraid Erik might push him off.

"You- where are you? I told you to leave us alone!" He turned left, then right, then left again and gasped. Erik was inches from his face, mask glowing white in the darkness. Raoul swallowed hard.

"Is she off, without you? With that little girl? Goodness, what a fit she threw earlier. Funny she would rather spend time with that than you." Erik casually put his hands on the railing, admiring the angry city in the distance. "She doesn't care about you, Raoul. She left you because she does not care, not anymore. She left poor, pitiful you to sit in self-loathing while she celebrates. I wonder why she didn't invite you. Perhaps she wants to spill all your little secrets: _My husband won't kiss me anymore, he pays more attention to other men than he does me! Should I change my hair? That will certainly catch his attention!_ " He laughed, his voice gone high and girlish.

If Raoul were braver, he would've slapped him. Instead, he tried to shove him in the chest, but Erik slid out of the way and he stumbled forward and shoved the air. Erik grabbed his wrist, pinned his arm behind his back and pulled him close. His front pushed up against Raoul's back, lips brushing his ear. Raoul shoved against him, trying to wrench his arm free. Erik pushed him against the railing, bent him at the waist, face aimed over the city below.

"Now. Will you please hear out my offer? The one I tried to tell you about yesterday?"

Raoul said nothing, but didn't struggle. Erik smiled and grabbed the back of his shirt, yanked him upwards. His mouth was on his neck. A circle of condensation formed, sticky and hot. He let go of Raoul's wrist and shoved him away. Raoul was suddenly aware of how hard he was breathing. It was the most excited he'd been in years.

"I am not saying yes to anything," He held his arm behind his back and rubbed a stinging wrist. "So don't get your hopes up. But I'm too tired to fight with you again. So, go on."

"Of course," Erik nodded mockingly. "I would like to discus a deal. A trade. I am not going to draw this out. Here is my offer: I will give you what you so desperately desire, and in return, you will not get in the way of my relationship with your wife." He'd picked up a habit of always calling her _your wife_ , never Christine, like her name was forbidden.

Raoul blinked, silent, considering Erik's offer. A good thirty seconds trying to decide if he meant what he thought he meant.

"Excuse me?"

Erik rolled his eyes. "Should I repeat myself? Simpler, this time? Make no move to prevent me from seeing her, no protecting her, and, whenever you ask, I will fulfill your wish for male company. Understand?" He spoke slowly, like he was talking to a stupid child.

"Why?"

Erik shrugged. "Why not?"

"Because last I saw you, you were trying to strangle me, or stab me, or both. And now you want to-" Now he wanted to what? Fuck him so he could freely fuck his wife? And he expected Raoul to just sit, dumb and content, and let it happen?

"You always say I am so horrible, and now that I try to do something nice for you, you reject it. Why?" He leaned against the railing. If it snapped, he'd fall to the ground and die on impact. Shove, scream, smash. A comforting thought.

"But why should you want to-"

"It is not about want, Monsieur," Erik interrupted hotly. "Don't flatter yourself, I have no attraction to you at all. You are handsome, obviously," He jabbed a finger at Raoul's face, then ran it down his cheek. His nail was sharp and long. "But empty. You have nothing I want. It is about what I am willing to do. But I will still hate you every minute of it. It is not always about intimacy, you know. Some men even use it as a punishment. Did you know that? No, of course you didn't, why would you? You know nothing about the horrors of life, living in that pretty little bubble of yours, where everything is nice and sweet."

"I assure you, I have not been immune to life's cruelty. Not that you would care, as you seem to believe no one but you is entitled to ever complain."

Erik narrowed his eyes and shot a sharp breath of air from his nostrils, like a reptile hissing.

"Your wife is too womanly for you, so you ignore her. Your family had too much money, so you threw it away. Your life was too perfect, so you grew bored and you ruined it. I am absolutely heartbroken by your tragic life story. Truly. How foolish was I to ever believe being sold, assaulted and beaten daily was any ordeal."

Raoul hated Erik's sob stories about his past. They almost made him feel sorry for him. Almost. But mostly, they just made him feel sick, head swimming with each new nasty detail. _Sold_ , that was new. He wondered who was stupid enough to buy him. He hoped they got a refund.

"What does any of this have to do with your 'offer'?"

Erik waved his hand, waving the conversation away. "Nothing. Never mind." He looked like he regretted showing emotion. Maybe he'd forgotten Raoul had already seen him sobbing and screaming, banging his fists against organ keys, tearing out his hair.

"So. What is your answer? Yes or no?"

Christine would be home soon. She'd crawl into bed and he'd pretend to be asleep. In the morning, she'd be quiet and sullen, he'd be pissed and hungover-drunk. In perfect harmony with every day for the past six years, now with Meg Giry and her selective sanity thrown into the mix. Christine and Meg would giggle at rehearsal, like ballerinas again, about something one of them said last night. Neither would bother explaining it to him.

"Yes. My answer is yes. Deal?" He held out his hand for Erik to shake. Erik was smiling, eyes wide and hungry, like a snake about to unhinge its jaw.

"Deal."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow this fic is weird. and very, very different from the original. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	3. consummation

"I have rehearsals until nine this evening," Christine said, fastening a pearl earring, pinning a brunette curl up. "But I was wondering if you would like to go out tonight. Just you and I." She turned from the mirror to her husband, clasped her hands in front of her and smiled.

"What about me, mother?" Gustave asked, looking up from the book Christine had busied him with. She walked over to him, patted his head.

"Madame Giry and Aunt Meg will watch you."

"But why can't I go?" He whined. "I want to see the city. It's been two days and all I've seen is this room."

Christine sighed and sat next to him on the little sofa. "I promise, you'll get to see all the city has to offer soon. But, it's too late tonight, and your father and I would like to spend some time together. Right?" She turned to him and smiled again.

Raoul sighed. "It's late, Christine. I'm tired. If you want to go out, invite Meg or someone. I'm not up to it."

"You never are, are you?" She mumbled.

"What?"

She chewed her bottom lip, twiddled her thumbs. "I just thought," She said, suddenly sweet again. "We haven't seen anything but this hotel and the theater. This city seems so beautiful, I thought you would want to see more of it. Besides, we haven't done anything, just us, in months."

"The city seems dreadful. I have no desire to see it."

Christine frowned like a cartoon, mouth twisted perfectly downward. She stared at the floor, silent, like she wanted to say something but was too scared.

"We're only here because we need the money." She said, mumbling again.

"Well, I wish we never came." And he did.

Christine bunched her white skirt in her fists. "We wouldn't have needed to if we had any of your inheritance left."

"Excuse me?" He looked up from the bottle of bourbon he was focused on, deciding the right moment to grab it.

"Please don't fight again," Gustave said, looking at his parents, hopeful, as if that would keep the peace. "I hate it when you fight. You should love each other." He sounded like he was going to cry. He cried far too often for a ten-year-old.

Christine put her arm around her son. "We do, Gustave." She turned to Raoul. "Right?"

He nodded. Attention focused completely on the bourbon, not looking at her.

She stood and walked back to the mirror, began switching her pearl earrings for silver ones. She held the second silver earring in the palm of her hand and stared at her reflection. She put a pearl in her left ear, left a silver in her right. She walked to her husband, heels clicking, the noise enough to drive him insane. She cupped his face and gently kissed him.

"I'm sorry."

He put his hand over hers, leaned down and kissed her palm. He was sorry, too. Maybe he should've told her. Instead, he pulled away, sat the glass down and grabbed his coat.

"I almost forgot, but I have somewhere to be." He kissed her again, on the forehead this time (still not the lips), and abruptly left. Through the closed door, he heard Gustave begin to sniffle.

"It's alright, dear, don't cry, it's alright." Christine said, voice muffled by the wall.

"No, it's not, it's not alright," Gustave sobbed. "He _hates_ us."

* * *

Erik lived on the top floor, the penthouse, five floors above his suite. The door was at the end of a very long, otherwise barren hallway. It had no room number.

Christine would be at rehearsals by now. He suddenly remembered he was supposed to be watching Gustave while she was away. He hoped she got someone else to watch him.

He banged on the door, trying to sound commanding and unafraid. He still didn't love the idea of being alone and vulnerable with Erik- Erik, who laughed while strangling him- but he didn't like the idea of going another seven years tightly-coiled any better. His first infidelity was the same year his sister died, the same year he started spending and drinking, the year everything started falling apart.

Erik opened the door, looking irritated then pleased, the smell of heavy perfume floating out. He probably wore it to hide the smell of decay that surrounded him naturally (it wasn't working). He wore a similar, equally expensive suit as yesterday, no coat this time. He still wore the mask. Raoul wondered if he took it off during sex. He wondered why he cared.

Erik said nothing, just smiled smugly and turned from the doorway, beckoning Raoul to follow him.

Erik's room was huge and red. Gory, like a heart. Almost everything was dark maroon, and what wasn't was gray or black. Typical. Velvet red curtains. Decadent silver walls. A looming king-sized bed with a flowing canopy. A considerable step up from his old dirty hole. A large, twinkling chandelier hung from the ceiling. Funny.

"I hadn't expected you so soon." Erik said, dropping shards of ice into a glass and filling it with red wine. He held it out to Raoul. "Since you're so fond of your drinks."

Raoul took it and stared down at it, didn't drink it. Erik sighed.

"I didn't poison it, if that's what you're worried about."

Raoul looked into an ornate silver mirror, hanging directly across from him. Erik stood behind him, growing closer and closer in the reflection. Raoul drank his wine hesitantly. It was sweet as cherries. Erik's hands were on his shoulders, tugging off his coat. It was less seductive and more like an inspection, like a prison strip-search.

Erik leaned forward, wrapped his arms around him, rested his chin on his shoulder. Stroked his chest and fiddled with his waistcoat buttons. Raoul leaned his head back, fitting perfectly in the crook between Erik's shoulder and neck. Erik's lips, dry and dead, sliding up his throat. Erik placed a hand on his stomach and held him in place, pulling his mouth away. Erik kissed and bit again, slightly lighter this time, and began undoing Raoul's belt and sliding his hands down his pants. Then, he pulled away and walked to the bed, motioning for Raoul to follow him. Raoul stumbled over numb legs and a loose belt, shoved the canopy out of the way and climbed onto the bed. Erik yanked his shirt open, ripping off the buttons, and shoved his hand back into his pants, grabbed his cock and rubbed angrily, violently, nails scraping and scratching. Raoul gasped, clenched the satin sheets in his fists.

"God, that hurts, what the Hell-"

"What?" Erik asked, leaning over, mouth above his ear. Never on his lips. Too intimate? "What did you expect? Do you want me to make love to you, soft and sweet? You want me to kiss you, like she does?" He rubbed harder and Raoul whimpered. "Or would you rather I bend you over and fuck you like the pathetic man that you are?"

Raoul said nothing, eyes shut and rolled back, whimpering and begging Erik to continue. Erik grabbed him by the shirt and flung him, face down, against the mattress. A shuffle of fabric, a click of a belt and Erik was pressed against him. Angrily and violently with nothing to dull the pain, he shoved inside, while simultaneously continuing jacking him off.

"You are just like all men," He said, sneering and disgusted, voice quiet and breathy but not soft. Never soft. "You think only with _this_." He tightened his grip on his cock, hard and slick. _Thrust_. "You hate me and you still want me in bed with you. Have you no standards?" _Thrust_. "I think you are disgusting," He kissed and licked at his neck, his ear, his lower back. "I think you are a disgusting, lying, lazy, whiny little child. You deserve to be hurt. You know you do. You want it." _Thrust_. "I hope she finds out. I hope she sees you for what you really are. I hope she leaves you in the dirt." _ThrustThrustThrust_ , and then finally, after seven years, _release_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay! smut! finally! who knew a fic about an affair would take this long to have actual sex in it?


	4. gift

Home by 12:36. The sex was not entirely unpleasant. Four more times, lying breathless and bruised in the spaces between, the air thick and stinking.

By the third time Raoul was practically crying and Erik was backhanding him, comically smacking his face left then right. Eventually he had one hand over his mouth and the other around his throat.

After the third time, when he was up to refill his glass of wine, Erik shoved him against the wall and slid in, thrust, moan, degradation, pulled out. He didn't mind Erik's constant insults as much as he thought he might.

He fucked him like a punishment. Like sex was a poor substitute for torturing and killing him. And maybe it was; both acts were sweaty and heaving, required a lot of physical strength and a lot of passion. That was one thing it always was, that it never was with Christine: passionate. Never a dull moment when you're coming on your old rivals face. Which he actually did. Erik was considerably pissed, smacking him again then putting two fingers beneath his chin, pulling his face upwards. When he thought he was going to kiss him, he turned his head and motioned for Raoul to lick the sex stains off his mask.

By the fourth time he could hardly feel his legs. Erik slid down between his legs, bit and licked his inner thighs until they bled. Lucky the sheets were already red.

By the end, he stunk of Erik, Erik's come on his fingers and cologne on his clothes. Erik refused to let him bathe in his apartment- _We aren't friends. You have your own room. Use it._

He stumbled back to his room, drunk and stinking and feeling satisfyingly used. The room was inky dark. Thank God no one was awake. Christine could yell at him in the morning.

"I thought you were tired."

She was curled on her side, not in her nightclothes, picking pins from her hair and dropping them into a little tin on the table.

"Christine- What are you still doing up?"

"I was worried about you. You left suddenly and I didn't see you for hours. Is everything alright?"

No. "Yes. Everything is fine. I had to deal with some business matters. About payment for your performance. Go to bed, it's late."

She nodded, stood and walked silently to her bedroom door. She lingered in the doorway and fiddled with her wedding ring, twisting it around her finger.

"I love you, Raoul." She whispered. Her back was to him. She could definitely smell Erik on him, sex and smoke and sweat. She had to know. She couldn't be that dumb.

"I love you, too."

* * *

In the next three days, Raoul went back to Erik three times, leaving anytime Christine was at rehearsal and wouldn't be home to nag him with questions.

Two days in and Erik still hadn't removed his mask; he'd hardly removed his clothes. Power move or genuine embarrassment? Probably the latter. It was just like him, being fully dressed, covered literally head-to-toe while Raoul was completely bare, unable to hide anything.

Three days in and he kissed him for the first time, a smothering kiss, like he was trying to swallow him whole. 

By the fourth day Raoul was thinking about Erik when he was nowhere near him. Dropping Christine off at rehearsals, at the bar, whichever bar, at dinner, in the hotel room, he thought of Erik. Not being able to sleep because he hadn't seen him. Lying in bed next to Christine, her tiny and sleeping, him shoving one hand down his pants and covering his mouth with the other. Praying she wouldn't wake up. So far, she hadn't.

Five days in and he was at a jewelry store on 5th Avenue. Shimmering diamond necklaces and bright gold wedding rings.

"Sir?" A saleslady, tall and thin, in her late forties, red-haired and wearing a string of pearls, asked. "May I help you?"

He looked up from the case of rings he'd been inspecting, eye on one with a round, ruby gemstone.

He gestured to the ring. She opened the case, plucked the ring and held it out for him to admire. The stone had flecks of black in it, twinkling like inverted stars. Red and black. Erik would like that.

"A present for your wife?"

He blinked, stayed silent for a minute. _No, it's for my male mistress who also happens to be my worst enemy who also happens to be a manipulative, disfigured psychopath._

"Yes."

He hardly had any money left, his bank account sucked dry and left dust-covered (by him), and he was buying jewelry. For Erik. He was buying jewelry for Erik, his very angry, possibly still murderous mistress. Take a few words out- Erik, angry, murderous- and that wasn't too odd. Men bought presents for their mistresses all the time; showered these inconsiderate, wanton women who had no concern for the marriages they gleefully ruined in diamonds and furs.

He paid for the ring in cash, no checks, nothing Christine could find out about. He left with the ring in his pocket, no packaging, no, really, I don't need it, it's fine.

Back at the hotel, he decided to wait until evening to hike back up to Erik's penthouse suite and give him his present, instead wait in his own empty room and debate why he bought the damn thing in the first place. He sat on the sofa, folded his hands and stared intently downwards.

Erik was doing him a favor. Technically not, as he was giving him something in return- access to Christine, the reminder he was whoring out his wife making him shudder- but still, a favor. And he was thanking him, doing the polite, gentlemanly thing. _Thanks for fucking me over a balcony railing, here's a ring. Oh, and sorry I got come on your mask._

A muffled thumping from the next room, his and Christine's bedroom, dragged him out of his thoughts. He cracked open the door hesitantly, then all the way, and his stomach lurched. Erik and Christine, Erik and his wife. Erik and his wife in his bed. Christine was on Erik's lap, back against his front, eyes thankfully shut. Erik had his hands on her stomach and was kissing her neck.

Erik kissed and touched her gently, lovingly, nothing like with Raoul. He seemed nervous, shy, inexperienced, nothing like before. It was hard to tell which was an act. Decades living below an Opera House had created quite the talented actor.

Erik opened his eyes (Christine luckily did not) and took notice of Raoul. He didn't look shocked or scared or embarrassed like Raoul hoped. He just looked smug, mouth turning up into a smirk as he kissed Christine's neck. Touching and kissing Christine was hard before; there was no way he could now, knowing what she'd let Erik do to her.

Erik, still smirking, still looking at Raoul, shoved a hand up Christine's falling-off dress. Raoul wrinkled his nose in disgust, spun on his heel and stormed out, wishing he could slam the door.

* * *

The first five minutes he was furious, red and fuming in anger. Leaving the hotel, fists clenched by his sides, wondering through the crowded street, trying to find a quiet place to be angry in peace.

Another five minutes later and he was debating whether he actually had anything to be mad about. That was the deal, anyways, let Erik have his fun with Christine and do nothing to prevent it. As always, as Christine would expect, he was doing nothing.

Ten minutes after seeing his wife with another man in his bed and he was still mad, but he knew he shouldn't be. He kept telling himself: I'm not angry, I have no right, but it did no good. Something awful rose in his throat like vomit. Jealousy.

The good news: Christine was getting what she wanted, Raoul was getting what he wanted, and Erik was too. Everyone was happy and content and fine, just perfectly fine.

He would go back to Erik tonight and not mention Christine. He still planned on giving him the ring, though.

After an hour and a half of wandering through Coney Island- a faded pier, a roller-coaster that was closed for repairs, two rats fighting over a smattering of abandoned cotton candy- he decided Christine and Erik had to be finished. He still knocked on the door, just to be safe.

Christine, just Christine, answered. She was wearing a pink nightgown and sheer robe, the left sleeve sliding off her shoulder. Her hair was loose down her back, not in the usual Gibson Girl up-do. She looked shocked, like she hadn't seen him in years and he was just randomly dropping by. She didn't look at him like a wife looked at a husband. Her face was pink and flushed, like it was ten years ago. She looked a strange combination of happy and on edge. Excited. She looked excited.

"Raoul, darling, what are you doing here?"

"It's my room, too." He said, pushing inside past her, pulling his coat off, feeling like she would somehow see the ring in its pocket.

"Of course, I'm sorry. You've just been out so much lately." She said, floating past him into the little kitchenette, tapping her nails on the counter. She seemed far-off, ghostly, like part of her wasn't quite there.

Suddenly, she was next to him, holding out a hairbrush; a silent question. He took it, she lowered into an overstuffed velvet chair, and he began brushing. Her chocolate colored curls stretched out then sprung back into place, slightly frizzy. She shut her eyes.

"Why did you ask me to marry you?" She asked, suddenly.

He stopped brushing. "What?"

"I was wondering," She said, opening her eyes. "Why? Why did you ask me? What made you fall in love with me?"

He held a limp clump of hair in his hand, stretched it out and ran the brush through it. "Where is this coming from?"

She shrugged timidly and folded her hands, back to the wedding ring again. "I don't know. I was just thinking. I'm sorry." Her shoulders tensed. She looked downwards. He'd ruined her little jag of happiness. "Don't be upset, please."

"I'm not upset, Christine. Why are you always assuming I'm upset with you?"

She folded her arms and took the hairbrush, started to brush her hair herself. "You always seem it. I never see you. You want nothing to do with me- you never even look at me."

He sighed, rubbed the bridge of his nose and knelt down beside her.  
"I asked you to marry me because I love you. Because I cared about you and wanted to protect you. I still do." He took her hands in his, ran a finger over her ring. "I just…I'm so tired, Christine. I can't deal with…with all of this."

"All of what?"

He gestured to the room, out the window. "This. Everything. Meg Giry, this awful park," He paused, hesitated. "With _him_. I can't do it again. I thought we were rid of him ten years ago, when you convinced him to let you go…and I just can't do it again. I can't. I will break, I swear it."

She nodded, shut her eyes for a long while and held his hands tightly.

"I know. And we are. We are rid of him. I'll sing his awful songs and be in his awful show so he won't hurt me…but after that, I never want to be near him again. I shouldn't say this, but…but I wish you'd killed him. Ten years ago, I wish you'd stabbed him through the heart. I want him gone. Forever."

She was crying silently, falling forward into Raoul's arms. He wanted to smack her. He wanted to shake her and yell, _you're lying, I know you're lying, I'm not going to be fooled again._

Instead, he cupped her face and made himself kiss her, once on the forehead and once on the lips. She tasted sour and smoky. She tasted just like Erik; she hadn't even washed him off her mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yikes christine is so ooc from how i like to portray her in this it was physically painful to write this chapter.


	5. cherry

It was several hours of twitching hands and a shot of whiskey and weighing the ring in his palm and another shot of whiskey before he went back to Erik. His life had become one long line of waiting, drinking, seeing Erik, thinking about Erik, wishing he was with Erik.

The other day while waiting for Christine to finish rehearsals, he fell asleep with his head against the wall and dreamed of Erik, wrapped around him like poison ivy. His eyes were hollow black pits, no iris or pupil, just darkness. He ran a nail, long as a witch's, down his face, drawing blood. He slipped a finger down his own throat, pulled out a long strand of silky thread. Spider's web. He wrapped it around Raoul's throat, squeezing until his face went blue, then chastely kissed him on the cheek.

Erik wasn't smiling smugly when he opened the door like Raoul expected. He was completely dead-faced, like a mannequin. He let Raoul in, gave him his usual drink and sat on the bed. For the first time, he wasn't wearing a suit. Instead he wore a thin satin robe, black, tied loosely. The neckline dipped almost to his waist; his chest was covered with faded, white scars. It was odd, seeing him in casual clothes. Raoul had never thought about what Erik wore to bed, what he did to fall asleep, what he did to avoid boredom. When he woke up, where he ate meals. It couldn't be here, there was no dining room, there wasn't even a kitchen. In fact, there was hardly anything besides a bed, a vanity and a little home-bar.

Raoul walked to the bed, swept the canopy out of the way, pulled the ring from his pocket. Any longer and he'd lose the nerve. He held it out and Erik stared, examining it.

"What's that?"

"A present. For you."

Erik arched an eyebrow that looked too perfect to be natural. "Really? That's very thoughtful." He plucked the ring as if he was worried Raoul might take it back, held it up to his eye, studied it. "Why?"

Raoul shrugged and put his hands in his pockets, wishing Erik hadn't asked him that. He had been worried he'd make a fuss and really just wanted Erik to put the damn ring on and start jacking him off, quick and efficient like before. Preferably with his ringless hand. Those things can cut, you know.

As if he read his mind, Erik slid the ring on his finger and grabbed Raoul by the waist, pulled off his coat and then his shirt and then his belt. He didn't reach down his pants though, instead he grabbed him and pulled him directly on top of him, yanked his pants around his ankles. He pushed the robe aside, let it slide off his shoulders. He wore nothing beneath, not even underwear.

He slid into him, slower at first then quickly sped up. Tossed and turned, flipped over so Raoul was beneath him instead. Then, he put a hand around Raoul's throat and squeezed. Brief panic quickly gave way to bliss when he realized Erik wasn't trying to kill him again. He squeezed, both hands around his throat, so hard Raoul could barely get out a moan. Erik squeezed harder, pushed Raoul against the bed. He seemed angrier than usual. He wasn't shouting insults like he always did, so loud spit flew off his lip and sprayed Raoul's face. He was completely silent, his face a cold, blank slate with the final angry thrust.

He collapsed beside Raoul, chest rising and falling rapidly, breath hard and heaving. They lay side by side, silent. Raoul shut his eyes, pulled the sheets over him, one leg dangling out and twitching. He opened his eyes when he felt Erik staring, eyes running across his mouth, his nose, his forehead, studying him.

He wore his robe again and had never even removed his mask. Raoul childishly wished he would, _if Christine can see him, why can't I?_

"Your son is very handsome," He said, suddenly. "Do you think he looks like you?"

Raoul blinked. "What?"

"Your son. Gustave is his name, I believe. Do you think you share a resemblance?"

"I suppose. A bit. He looks more like his mother." It made his stomach turn, talking about his family, about his son after sex.

"Hm." Was all Erik said. "He doesn't act much like you. He's very sweet. Very talented, too. I suppose he gets that from his mother as well, right?"

Raoul sighed and shut his eyes again. "I don't particularly want to talk about my son right now. I think you can understand that." He was suddenly aware of how drunk he was. The whiskey from earlier, the wine Erik gave him mixing sickly in his stomach. His head began to ache.

"He's so unlike you, Raoul. Don't you think it's strange?" He lay next to him now, head resting on folded arms, whispering in his ear. "You've nothing in common. Don't you feel it's a bit odd, how much he is like me, and how little he is like you?"

"What? God, Erik what are you talking about…" He rolled over, the light stinging his eyes.

"You know. You've always known. That's why you hate him so much. He's just a little reminder of how irrelevant you are."

Raoul pulled himself up, hand over his mouth, gagging.

"If you're going to be sick, don't do it on my bed. Go to the balcony, at least."

Raoul forced himself to stand up, stumbled to the bar, grabbed an empty ice bucket and let himself vomit inside, stinging and watery. He wished he could empty Erik's words from his mind, too.

When he looked up and his vision stopped blurring, he saw Erik, lying on his stomach in bed, admiring his new ring like a moony teen girl. If he had long hair, he'd be twirling it on his finger.

"Thank you for the gift, Raoul," He said, cupping his face with his ringed hand, flashing the gemstone. "You should tell your wife and son how generous you are. With me, at least."

* * *

When Christine was pregnant, not even a year after they were married, she was almost always angry. The doctor said that wasn't odd, all pregnant women get moody, but Raoul couldn't help but feel like Christine's moodiness was different. She wasn't screaming at him, except on the sudden occasion she was, she rarely even said anything. She just sat, cupping her round, hard belly that Raoul hated touching, staring straight ahead. He never told her, but it scared him, the way she acted, the witchy way she sat perfectly still for hours. He'd done everything the doctor told him, back when he was still trying, to be the considerate, sensitive husband to the queasy, moody wife with a child growing inside her. Once, he brought her flowers, a bouquet of lilies, but apparently, lilies symbolize death. She didn't find it funny. Another time, they were in a fight, a loud, screaming argument about something or the other, and she scratched him. She'd swiped a hand at his face and scraped her nails down his cheek, then she stormed off, sobbing, leaving him to his stinging new wound.

Mindlessly, he ran a finger down the faded, nearly invisible white scar on his cheek. A reminder of Christine's anger, the violence she was capable of but rarely showed. She'd apologized profusely the next day, crying and putting a new bandage on his face and telling her how she hadn't even felt like herself when she scratched him, how sorry she was.

He thought about her nastiness when she was pregnant, how he never felt the protective, paternal bond with Gustave he was always told he would, how few similarities there were between them. He thought about Erik's words: _Don't you feel it's a bit odd, how much he is like me, and how little he is like you?_

He'd returned to the bar, not the bar he'd met Erik at but the one in the hotel lobby. It was just as desolate as the first bar, though, the only other person being a rather irritated bartender. He stared down into his glass, like it would give him his answers.

Meg Giry smiled and climbed onto the stool next to him. She wore a red dress this time, the sequin trimming distinctly marking it as a costume. Drinking on a rehearsal break. He thought that probably wasn't for the best, then decided he was in no place to judge.

She ordered tequila- the bartender didn't ask for identification- then turned to him and smiled, hands on her knees, like she was waiting for him to say something.

"I'm sorry about my behavior the other day," She finally said. "I wish you hadn't seen me like that."

He nodded, turned and leaned against the counter. He wished she'd leave, or at least shut up.

"Mama and I are working on it. I just get so upset so easily, and when it's over, I know it was silly, but I'll go into these episodes where the tiniest little things, they make me so irrational. Like the world will end if I get one line wrong. You know?"

Again, he nodded as if he did know, thinking _shutupshutupshutup_. She must've got the hint, because she went silent, drank her tequila then ordered a coffee, stirred her fingers through a jar of cherries on the bar but never actually ate one.

"Mr. Y told me he loves his gift," She said, a smug, teasing smile on her face, like a child.

Raoul coughed on his drink. She'd succeeded in catching his attention. He furrowed his brow, no idea who Mr. Y was, then remembered the fake name Erik had used to bring them to New York. Erik. She knew about him and Erik.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Sweat beading on his face, hands fidgeting. He couldn't more obviously be lying.

She giggled, still smiling, like the whole think was a joke, her young, girlish brain not recognizing the seriousness of the situation.

"You don't have to lie to me, Monsieur." She was still smiling, but her words had less meanness to them. "It's alright, I won't tell." She sipped her coffee, then poured more sugar into it. Meg Giry was a child. Physically she'd grown, but mentally, she was forever a little gossipy ballet girl, giggling to a friend a new, juicy rumor. His secret was not safe with her.

"You cannot tell anyone. Certainly not Christine. Do you understand? How did you even find out?" He asked, quietly so the bartender, who was listening to their conversation while pretending to clean the counter, couldn't hear. If they weren't in public he would've grabbed her wrist, shook her until she talked.

"Mr. Y told me," She boasted proudly. "I'm his closest friend. He tells me everything." He didn't believe her. He doubted she'd ever had a real conversation with him.

He waved for the bartender to refill his glass. "Then you should know his real name is not Mr. Y."

"I know that." She shot, narrowing her eyes. She turned on her stool, aimed her body away from him.

"Miss Giry, listen, I'm-" He sighed. He was sick of apologizing to hysterical women. "I'm sorry. Alright?"

"You should leave," She said, her tone suddenly serious, the girlish teasing gone. She turned her head sharply towards him, blonde curls jolting. "All of you. You should leave the city. It's not safe here."

"What?" He leaned forward. "What are you talking about?"

"I told you- _he tells me everything_. Listen to me, please. He's got you. Both of you. He's using you. He doesn't care, you know that, right? When he's done, he'll throw you away. And her?" She leaned in close, their faces inches apart. Red lipstick was smudged on her front teeth. "Don't let her sing. He'll get inside her and she'll never leave. You'll be going back to Paris alone."

"You need to be quiet, Miss Giry. You have no idea what you're talking about." He stood up to leave and she followed, blocking him in.

"And you need to take my advice," She scolded like an angry mother. "Leave. If you care about you and your wife's well being, leave. For all our sakes."

And then, the spookiness of before gone, she finished her coffee, popped the meaty end of a cherry into her mouth, bit into it, and flicked the stem to the floor.

He sat back down, put his head in his hands and tried not to cry. He wanted to cry, the weight and stress of the past week, Christine's lying and anger, Meg's pleading warning settling on him. _He's using you._ And she said it like she understood. She said it like she knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry it's been so long since i've updated !! i've been busy recently and kept forgetting, but hopefully i'm back now.


	6. split

It was late Friday night, technically Saturday morning, but let's say Friday night. Raoul woke to a frigid cold and empty bed. The balcony doors were open, the curtains whipping against them like water stopped by a dam. Rain smacked angrily against the roof and balcony, splashing inside. He saw a sliver of Christine beyond the door.

He made himself stand up, rubbed his tired eyes, his brain blurry and refusing to wake with his body.

Christine stood at the edge of the balcony, staring into the darkness, arms wrapped around herself. Her nightgown, thin enough to see through, blew backwards, same as the curtains. It clung to her body, sticky with rain.

"Christine?" He called, raising his voice over the angry wind and rain. "Christine, what are you doing? Get back in here, you'll get sick."

Christine remained perfectly still, silent. Her hair blew against her face, a tornado of brown curls. He stumbled towards her, grabbed her wrist and started pulling her back inside. She made no move to fight but didn't acknowledge him either.

He shut the doors and locked them, collapsed back into bed. A minute later he felt Christine sit delicately on the edge of the mattress. He could imagine the tiny, wet imprint she was creating and was too tired to tell her to change. It didn't matter, they wouldn't be sleeping in this bed much longer.

"I'm so tired." She whispered. He was almost asleep again, barely listening.

"Go to sleep. You'll feel better in the morning."

"No I won't. I never am." Both were silent for a long moment, him pretending to be asleep.

"It's too much." She sounded on the verge of tears.

He stayed silent, eyes squeezed shut, not moving.

"I knew you wouldn't understand," She said, laying down flat on her back. "You never do."

* * *

 

It was officially Saturday evening. In a few hours, Raoul and Christine would be miles from New York City, from Phantsma and Coney Island and Meg Giry and Erik. Erik, above all, was what he wanted to be away from.

He didn't go back to Erik since their conversation about Gustave. He kept thinking about Meg Giry's warning. About what Erik said about his son and Erik in his bed with his wife and Christine, practically sleepwalking, _It's too much_. She was right. It was too much.

Christine sat at the gilded vanity in her dressing room, pinning her hair back, spraying her neck with perfume and holding up necklace after necklace.

"Gustave, will you hand me those earrings, please?"

He placed two silver studs, the ones she couldn't decide on the other night, into her hand. She pushed her hair from her ears and and pinned them in. His wife's complete nonchalance about having two holes in her ears was something he'd never understand.

"Gustave," He started. "I need to talk to your mother alone. Go wait outside, please."

Gustave looked up at him, tilted his head to the side. "Why?"

"I told you, I need to talk to your mother."

"But why can't I stay? I want to help mother get ready."

Christine turned to her son, took his hand.

"Why don't you wait with Aunt Meg, sweetheart?"

"But I want to stay with you." He clung to her arm, frowned.

"I promise, we'll spend time together back home. Alright?"

He nodded and she leaned forward, kissed him on the forehead and ushered him out. She turned to Raoul, no longer smiling and returned to prepping herself. Brushing on red lipstick, dusting on pink blush.

"What is it, dear?" Her gaze was blank, war-worn, like a solider trudging back from battle.

He knelt down beside her, took her hand, pulling her attention away from the mirror.

"Christine," He started, hit with a sudden burst of _I am about to cry_. "I want you to know this: I am so far beyond sorry for how I have treated you. Not one part of me has ever deserved a single inch of you." He was crying, finally, thin tears welling in his eyes and running freely down his face. "But…I need you to do something. For me. Do this, and I swear, I will spend the rest of my life as the man you fell in love with."

She stared at him, eyes wide and frantic in confusion. "What is it? What are you talking about? You're frightening me…"

"Please," He squeezed her hands tightly. "Please, just do this, and I will spend the rest of our life together trying to make it up to you."

"What?" She pleaded. "Do what?"

"Don't sing for him."

She blinked, almost laughed. "What?"

"Please. I will do anything for you, I swear it. Just leave with me. Tonight. We'll be happy again, we'll be a true family."

"Raoul, please, you don't know what you're talking about. I have to do this, please, just let me do this."

She turned back to the mirror, began fiddling with her hair in faux nonchalance.

"Christine, please-"

"I need to do this, Raoul. I need to. Please let me."

"Christine!" He grabbed her by the shoulder, tried to make her face him but she turned back to the mirror, springing back into place. She was completely silent, like if she didn't acknowledge him he'd just disappear.

"Christine, my darling, my wife, please listen to me." Her eyes were shut, tears leaking out. "You cannot do this. I won't allow it. He will hurt you, he might _kill_ you, or Gustave, or me." She craned her neck down, propped her elbows on the table and put her head in her hands. "We will be happy together again. You just need to come home with me." He finished, sweetly as he could.

After a long moment of nothing but quiet sobbing, she straightened her neck and looked up, looked him directly in the face. Her face and eyes were pink, but she was no longer crying. She was horrifically calm.

"Go to Hell," She said, plainly.

"I- What?"

"Go to Hell." She repeated, louder and slower this time, her standing up, him following.

"I don't understand,"

"No. Of course you don't, when do you ever? You won't allow it? You want me to leave? With you? So we can go back home, and I'll be the sweet, understanding wife while you ignore me and promise me you'll be better, but never actually make an effort? My God, what is wrong with you? I have given you absolutely everything I have! I gave you my love, my money, my entire life! And this is how you treat me?"

He stared at her again (so much of their marriage, just staring in silence).

"Christine, I don't…" _No, don't say you don't understand again, she'll love that_. "I think you're overreacting a bit…"

"Do you? Did you ever consider what I think? No. You only think about yourself, what you want." She inched closer and closer to him, backing him up to the door. "I will not come home with you, darling husband. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever. Stay and watch the performance if you like, but after that? I do not want to see you again. You're finally free of your burden, your annoying, stupid wife and your annoying, disappointing son, you should be happy!" Spit flew from her mouth onto his face, her face contorted into an angry red mess, teeth gnashing. "Congratulations, Raoul. You got what you wanted. You won!"

She spun around, wrapped her arms around herself.

"Christine, I-"

"Leave. I never want to see you again, you wretched, unhappy man."

"I know. But one last time, let me say-"

He was going to say I'm sorry, but before he could get the words out, she spun around and slapped him, hard, across the cheek. A flash of her, ten years ago and pregnant with that monster's child.

He pressed a hand to his cheek, just like the time she scratched him, hissed at the stinging. He looked up at her and saw her looking frightened, maybe of him and how he would react and maybe of herself and what she'd done.

"Leave." She finally said. No room for debate. No more argument. She'd said what she wanted to say, said it so easily like she'd rehearsed it in her head a million times. She was done.

He didn't try to keep fighting, didn't hit her back, didn't even want to. He nodded sadly and turned, left the dressing room. Through the closed door he heard her resume her crying in loud, almost relieved heaving.

* * *

Empty and on auto-pilot. That was how he left Christine's dressing room. He felt queasy, drunk-queasy even if he hadn't drank all day (another promise he was planning on making to Christine but she never allowed him to: come home with me and I'll quit drinking). His head spun like Phantasma's rickety old carousel, it's horses that looked skeletal and misshapen.

He was going to leave, but a uniformed woman recognized him and led him backstage ( _The best view for our star's beloved husband!_ ), where he could watch Christine sing, triumphant and giddy that she was rid of her husband that she never even really cared for.

Across the stage, cloaked in shadows from the curtains, he caught a glimpse of Erik, and a minute later, felt a heavy hand settle on his shoulder and begin fiddling with his hair.

"This is our goodbye, Raoul de Chagny." Erik said. He did not sound saddened. "I would by lying if I said I didn't enjoy some of it. You are so fun to play with, like a pretty little doll. I never had a doll as a child, you know. I should thank you for filling that void."

Raoul shut his eyes, wanting to cry again, but mostly wanting to spin around and grab Erik by the throat, bash in his grotesque face and get rid of that smug smile, shut him up finally. Bury him six-feet deep (Erik back underground. He liked the irony.) and never see him again. But not really, he knew that. He would never not see a flicker of Erik, his mask or his hands or his teeth, when he shut his eyes, when he was feeling particularly angry with himself and every bad memory bubbled up to mock him. Erik, his brother's death, add Christine's outburst to the list, and suddenly he was stopped mid-thought, by a new, more important thought: did he really have that few bad memories?

"But now I am done with you. I don't need you anymore. I have her. Finally. I have finally won and you have lost."

Flash of Christine, _You got what you wanted. You won!_

"She can't love you. I don't think she will ever love again." He was too tired to fight with Erik again, to taunt and tease and boast and argue about who owned Christine's heart. Maybe that's where they both kept going wrong. They both kept trying to own a woman with a heart like a bird, always jumping and flittering and requiring constant freedom.

"I didn't ask for your input." But of course, he wanted it, that's how Erik was. He wanted you to tell him how genius he was, how amazing and miraculous his mind is, with its shifting gears and diabolical schemes. He wanted your input so he could smugly reject it, because of course, the Phantom of the Opera didn't value the opinion of an ignorant, cheating, spoiled, drunk, other-word-he-liked-throwing-at-him bastard.

"So you're just going to leave me? You've ruined my life and now you're going to discard me, throw me aside, leave me with nothing?"

"I wouldn't leave you with nothing. Before we part, Monsieur de Chagny," Erik leaned forward, hot breath on his neck, lips tickling his ear. "Perhaps a goodbye kiss? For your poor life-ruiner?"

Raoul bunched his fists. _Youbastardyoubastardyouevilschemingwhore_. He thought about punching him. Across the stage, a man activated a spotlight. Another's voice crackled through the theater, announcing that _Christine de Chagny will be performing in five minutes_. He wondered if she'd change her last name again, from de Chagny back to Daaé.

He whirled around with all intent to yell at Erik, to punch him or strangle him or do something to show he still hated him, but he made the mistake of looking directly into his eyes, yellow as two sickly moons, and he thought about Erik in bed with him and Erik's haunting voice that slipped inside his brain through his ears, like a vine, and then suddenly, about Madame Giry's story about the _man locked in a cage!_ and if it was even true, because how can you ever be sure with Erik? Where does the mask end? Where does the skin begin?

Erik put a hand on Raoul's lower back, pulled him close. There was no violence, no nails digging into his skin, no teeth on his throat, no threat, no fear. It was a casual, romantic move, and they must've looked like a happy, normal, honeymoon-phased couple, kissing and hugging before a show Erik had taken him out to see.

"Kiss me," He said, not demanding, more like offering. "Kiss me, Raoul de Chagny." He leaned somehow closer, his nose bumping against Raoul's. "Kiss me, my fool."

Raoul lifted himself onto his toes- Erik was a good head taller than him- and did as he was told. He felt Erik smile beneath his lips, then he felt nothing beneath his lips. Quick as he'd came, Erik was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. SHE DID THAT 2. this fic makes it seem like i hate r/c, but i swear i don't. like i said, i'm just portraying them how i see them in lnd, and that's not exactly similar to their characterizations in the original.


	7. bang

Christine sang, beautifully and despairing. She sung like she was falling to the bottom of a well, screaming all the way down, hoping someone would find her. On the final line, she stretched her arms to the audience, shut her eyes and cried like she wanted it all over.

Raoul was wondering around the dark, foggy city again, fighting the urge to down a bottle of Scotch or whiskey or whatever, when a thin, frantic police officer, soaked in sweat despite the low temperature, rushed up to him and asked him, _Are you Christine Daae's husband?_ and he nodded, and the officer looked at him sympathetically and said, _You need to come with me_ , and led Raoul to the little pier behind Phantasma. A crowd of people, concerned and flittering, and two police cars surrounded it.

Meg Giry was sobbing into her mothers arms, and Erik was on the edge of the pier, staring down at the water, and Gustave was directly behind him and Christine, still in her loud blue peacock dress, was laying curled on the ground, only why was she on the ground and why were Meg and Erik crying and why did Meg have a gun? Then, Meg fell to the ground and Christine came into full view. She had a wet, dark red stain in the middle of her stomach, her eyes gently shut, shut like a corpse at a funeral, like an anguished Madonna, lips slightly parted, eyes rolled back behind her eyelids, looking to God's kingdom, waiting to finally be delivered home.

 _Nonononono_.

He walked a few feet, then fell to the ground in front of his dead wife, the officer behind him yelling _Sir, sir, you need to come back here_ , him not hearing because the whole world was just loud, fuzzy ringing, and he took her body in his arms and started to sob, her blood soaking into his front, rocked her tenderly back and forth like that would bring her back, and then he heard Erik screaming, _Get away from her, don't touch her like that, what are you doing?_ , and saw him lunging at him, straddling him with his hands around his throat while he sobbed and screamed _You killed her, you bastard, you did this, you killed her, I just got her back and you killed her._ He tightened his grip on Raoul's throat, lifted him a few inches above the pavement, and then two officers pulled him off, one holding each flailing arm, but not before he managed to bang Raoul's head against the ground and then everything was silent, and then everything was black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm evil. i know.


	8. and the excellent things we planned

Raoul woke to an angry afternoon sun, streaming through curtains directly into his face. His unfamiliar surrounds were stark white and beaming. His first thought: _hospital_ , then he heard shuffling and rolled over to see Erik by his side, playing nurse and peeling a bandage off his forehead and thought: _hell_. He'd died and was stuck in his own, personal hell. Blood trickled down his forehead and dripped onto the bed. He could feel a pool of it beneath his head.

Erik lifted his head up, his neck aching, and applied a new bandage. He tried to sit up but Erik pushed him down and pulled out a small needle, stabbed it directly into Raoul's neck with medical professional calmness.

Raoul gasped, grabbed his neck and suddenly felt very tired, his limbs gone heavy and liquid, too heavy to move. He fell against the pillows, his eyes dropping shut, Erik's blurry form, the sun behind him turning him into a ghastly shadow, sitting and watching, unblinking and still. He looked absolutely terrifying, the sunbeam behind him like a blossoming halo.

* * *

He dreamed a foggy, gray dream of Christine. She was alive, no hole in her stomach, sitting by his bedside and tending to him, only then she wasn't Christine, she was Erik, and he was strapped to the mattress like an operating table. Erik ran a knife through his chest, stuck a hand inside him and delicately pulled out his heart, then locked it in a little wooden box and left.

* * *

He woke a second time, this time in almost complete darkness. His clothes- the same clothes from That Night- were stuck to his body with sweat. A line of dried blood streaming down out of his now-filthy bandage.

He pulled himself up and felt like someone had repeatedly hit his brain with a brick, then he started to remember. Erik bashed his head against the ground because he was mad at him, mad at him because-

Because Christine was dead. His wife. His poor, innocent wife was dead.

Erik was gone, and it seemed his mysterious vile of sleeping medicine had worn off, too. Raoul stood up, his legs stiff from lack of movement. He wondered how long he'd been asleep.

The room he was in was completely new. It wasn't his hotel room and it wasn't Erik's penthouse. It was small, not lived in, a bed and a nightstand and a chair in the corner by what he guessed was a closet. His gray coat lay discarded on the chair.

Almost afraid of what lay beyond his bedroom door, he slowly pushed it open and peaked out. A townhouse, clean and well-lit with dark green floral wallpaper, like ivy coating the walls. No sign of Erik.

He slipped out, quietly clicked the door shut behind him and leaned over the banister. Still no Erik. He heard a quiet click-shuffle from downstairs, like glass rubbing together.

He walked down the stairs slowly so they didn't creak and took in his surroundings. Same green wallpaper, old furniture, a red love-seat with torn velvet covering, an overstuffed bookshelf, muddy oil paintings. Erik's furniture. It was Erik home, his real home. That was obvious, he knew that before, but the furniture cemented it. It was the same furniture he'd seen in Erik's house by the lake.

"Father?"

Gustave was sitting on the edge of a sofa, legs dangling, holding a ball-jointed doll with curly blonde hair in his lap. That sound. It was the scuff of one porcelain limb against another.

"Gustave? What are you doing here?"

"Mr. Y brought me. He told me you were hurt. Are you going to be alright? You're bleeding."

He most certainly was not going to be alright and it had nothing to do with his head wound.

"Father?" He asked as Raoul sat next to him. "Is what Mother said, before she…before…" Tears welled in his eyes. Raoul could've reached out and comforted him, but he didn't. "Before she left. About you, and him, was it true?"

Raoul raised his eyebrows, not sure what Christine had told him and hoping it wasn't what Gustave made it sound like.

"What did she tell you?"

"That you-" He sniffled and began stroking the dolls hair. "That he is my father. Not you. It's not true, is it?"

Raoul sighed, looked down. He really wished he hadn't asked that.

"I took care of you, I helped raise you, not him. It doesn't matter matter who he is. Yes, he is your father, but you are my son."

He hoped Gustave would hug him appreciatively, tell him he knew that and would never see Erik as his father. But he didn't. He nodded solemnly and went back to his doll. Erik's doll, he recognized it. A present from father to son. Raoul had never handpicked a present for him. Saying he took care of him was a lie and saying he raised him was a stretch. He'd parented hardly more than Erik, who wasn't even aware of Gustave's existence for the better part of his life.

"Isn't she lovely?" Gustave said, turning his doll to face his father. "Mr. Y gave her to me. I think she looks like Miss Giry, don't you?"

The doll stared up at him with shiny glass eyes and permanently-parted pink lips. She wore a light blue dress and matching bonnet. The comparison to Meg made him want to shatter her tiny porcelain skull.

"I know Miss Giry didn't mean to hurt Mama. Her mother said she's very sick and is staying somewhere special, so she can get well again. I hope she does get well. I want to tell her I forgive her. I think Mother would too. Don't you?"

Raoul nodded and he meant it. Of course Christine would forgive her. It sounded like a joke: _Christine, you would forgive someone if they killed you!_ Christine forgave everyone, perhaps too easily. He wondered if, as she lay bleeding to death, she forgave him.

"Gustave?" He asked gently. "Where is Er- where is Mr. Y? Is he here?"

"No," Gustave said, attention on his doll now. Good. A child shouldn't think about his mothers death and forgiving her murderer. "He went out, to get things ready."

"Ready?"

"For us to stay here. He said he's never had guests before."

Raoul stuttered. "We aren't staying here, Gustave. I'm taking you back home. Away from him."

"Why?" Gustave looked up. His eyes were doe-sad. "I want to stay."

"Well, I'm certainly not leaving without you."

"Why can't you just stay here? With both of us? Mr. Y said he was very excited for you to live with him. How long have you two been friends?"

Raoul almost laughed. Of course Erik was excited to live with him. Excited to have freedom to strangle him in his sleep.

"I wouldn't really call us friends."

"Oh," Gustave said, dull-surprised. "He seems to think you are. He kept talking about you. He likes you a lot."

Raoul nodded and got angrier and angrier at Erik by the minute. _He likes you a lot_ bounced through his brain.

"Gustave?" Erik called, opening the door, the sound of heavy rain here then gone as the door shut behind him.

"Gustave, are you-" He noticed Raoul and stuttered. "Raoul! Oh, I'm glad you're up. I was worried about you. I wish you'd slept just a bit longer, though, so I could have time to get things ready. Why don't you come with me, let me change your bandages? You're bleeding again."

Be alone with Erik now but get to ask all his questions, or sit in silence and confusion until he was alone with Erik later? He decided on the former, the lesser of two evils.

Erik took him back to the room he woke up in, sat him on the bed and began undoing the stained gauze on his forehead.

"I am not living with you. And neither is my son. We are leaving."

Erik nodded calmly. "I didn't expect you to like the idea. I wish you were more like him. You argue too much. Leave in a few days if you want, but not until you've healed. You caught a fever, not to mention your head wound."

"My head wound _you caused_ when you attacked me like an animal."

Erik pulled out a pair of scissors, snipped a new ribbon of gauze off the roll.

"I'm sorry about that, but I was a bit upset. The love of my life was just shot and killed by a gun-wielding lunatic."

Raoul's heart sank. He'd hoped if neither acknowledged it, Christine wouldn't really seem dead, and he could just pretend she was off in Sweden or France or wherever, not in a morgue. But no such luck. Of course not.

"So I didn't dream it. She's really dead, isn't she?"

Erik stopped, went silent.

"Yes. I know, it doesn't feel real. I keep thinking she'll come back. But she won't." He started wiping dried blood from Raoul's cheek. "I wish she hadn't gone like that. I know she wanted to leave…she told me she was tired of living…but that…it wasn't fair. To bleed out on the ground of a dirty, unfamiliar city. Terrified. She deserved so much more."

Raoul shut his eyes and tried not to cry.

"She did."

They both stayed silent as Erik finished replacing his bandage, then pulled out the syringe from before. The medicine inside was light green.

"What is that?"

"Medicine to get rid of your fever. I could go in to more detail, but I don't want to confuse you. Now give me your arm."

He grabbed Raoul by the wrist, injected him with the nameless antidote before he could reject anymore. Raoul rubbed at the sore spot it left on his forearm. Erik put the gauze and scissors and rag in the bedside table drawer. The syringe went into his coat pocket.

"I need you to answer a few questions for me."

Erik nodded, sat on the chair in the corner.

"How long have I been asleep?"

"Awhile. About two days. You're a very heavy sleeper."

Raoul felt light-headed. Two days. Erik had been alone, unsupervised, with his son for two days. Erik had been unsupervised with _him_ for two days, him drugged and passed-out.

"Where is Meg Giry?"

"She's staying at an institution for the mentally ill until she is better. Her mothers idea." They both kept saying that, that Meg would get better, as if a few chalky pills and the occasional straitjacket would make her brand new and ready to rejoin society. She didn't belong in a madhouse. She belonged in a prison.

"How is Gustave? Is he alright?"

"Yes. He is very brave. He hardly cries, except at night, when he's alone. He isn't afraid of me anymore. I came into his bedroom when he woke from a nightmare, worried about him being upset, but even more worried about how he'd react, and he-" His breathing hitched, his words stuck in his throat. "He wasn't scared. He is so good. Kind. Maybe you really are his father after all. He's nothing like me, not really. Not a wicked thought in his head." He smiled sadly. It was true; Gustave inherited all his fathers talent and none of his cruelty.

"Will you tell me what happened? That night? When…" _When you got my wife killed._

Erik looked like he'd been expecting that question. He breathed in, prepared himself to answer.

"Miss Giry was…unhinged. Hysterical. She had taken my- your- Gustave to the pier behind the theater. She had a gun. She was going to drown him. Madame Giry, Christine and I arrived before she could. She was furious at me, I don't know why. And she was so…so angry at Christine. She let Gustave go and she aimed her gun at me. I wish I hadn't moved out of the way. I wish she'd shot me. Christine would still be alive." He looked at the floor. His voice was low and empty, all his emotions hidden behind a thin layer of detachment. "She fired the gun at me. I should've been shot. But no, of course not, I can't even die when I want! I can't even do that correctly. I saw her aim the gun and I wasn't afraid. I was so used to being ready to die, I'd almost forgotten, _but I have Christine now! I don't need to kill myself anymore!_ So I tried to grab the gun, and she fired it, and then…Christine was gone."

He turned around, walked to the window and pushed it open. The rain had only gotten louder. He breathed heavily, his shoulders shaking. Raoul hoped he wouldn't cry. He couldn't deal with him crying, the way he sobbed and screamed, tears and snot dripping down his face like a child in a tantrum. Raoul wasn't understanding, empathetic Christine, he couldn't just pet his head and make the bad thoughts go away.

Quickly, Erik turned back around, thankfully not crying but the threat of tears still in his eye.

"I went out today," He said, suddenly. "I bought you two the things you'll need to live here comfortably. If there's anything I forgot, let me know."

"I already told you, we're not staying with you."

Erik smiled softly, crossed the room and stood in front of Raoul. He had to look up to meet his eyes, Erik towering above him. He cupped his face in his hand, tilted it upwards, brushed his fingers across his cheek.

"When you're well, you're free to go. If that's what you really want, of course. Is it?"

"Yes-"

"Because I think if you really wanted to leave, you would've left by now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and so begins part two.


	9. choke

Nothing made sense. He'd repeated the facts in his head over and over again: _My wife is dead, I'm living with my psychotic mistress who up until recently I believed hated me and my son isn't really my son_. Every time he told it to himself, he wanted to laugh, a high, wry laugh, the laugh of a lunatic who's trying to convince himself he's sane. A laugh that's more a substitute for crying than anything else, because crying makes it real, makes it serious, but if you laugh, maybe God will recognize he's made a horrible mistake, having your life take this horrible, bizarre turn that you didn't at all deserve, and he'll think, _Oh, my mistake_ , and everything will be fixed.

The days dragged by, shadowy and smoky. He slept for most of them, always tired nowadays, sometimes unable to keep his eyes open, and when he didn't sleep, he laid his situation out in front of him like a strange deck of cards (he could hear Erik chiding him on the irony. Deck of cards, recovering gambler, he got it) and thought, or he wondered around the house, dazed as an escaped patient, and explored his new habitat. Erik's overstuffed, slightly torn velvet chairs and sofa. Erik's mahogany bookcase with more books than Raoul had ever read, Erik's Louise-Phillipe furniture, Erik's record player and records Raoul had no interest in. Everything in the house belonged to Erik.

Erik confused him. When he thought he'd figured out what he wanted, to ruin his life with no repercussions, Erik was practically begging him to live with him, to never leave him again.

Of course, with Erik, it's impossible to tell what's real, what's fake, what Erik thinks is real but is actually fake, because there are a dozen variations of him to choose from, take your pick! Wise Angelic Tutor, Pesky Opera Ghost, Byronic Seducer, Exotic Temptress, Love-Crazed Lunatic, Fragile Victim, Respected Businessman, and now, Heroic Family Man. Erik had so many different people inside him. Rip off one mask and you'd find another and another and another, never finding the real man, the real soul, always just another stock character he'd perfected playing. Part of it, Raoul guessed, came from never actually going out into the real world, learning everything he knew from books and operas.

The other part? He was just like that.

* * *

Christine Daaé, permanently 31, was buried in a little church cemetery in Manhattan. Raoul knew she would've wanted to be buried back in Sweden, in her home, but Erik wanted her close to him and refused to pay to have her body shipped back and buy a plot at a cemetery there, and Raoul certainly didn't have the money, so Manhattan burial it was.

Erik didn't wear his mask to her funeral, or if he did, it wasn't visible. He wore a heavy black veil, determined to appear like more of a grieving widow than Christine's actual husband.

The funeral was tiny, anyone who knew Christine back in Europe, no fans or admirers invited. No one gave speeches. Everyone was too busy crying. Gustave clung to both his fathers hands the whole time, sobbing silently, watching his mother be buried. No child should ever have to see that. Raoul had seen it, seen his father's coffin lowered into the ground as a child, and look where he was.

Christine's coffin was white and shiny. She would've liked it. Her headstone, tall with a cross on top and a portrait of her in the center, read:

 _Countess Christine Daaé_  
_Beloved Wife, Mother & Angel_

And then below it:

 _"Holy angel, in Heaven blessed_  
_My spirit longs with thee to rest!"_

They were lyrics from _Faust_. Raoul remembered them. He would never forget them.

The lyrics were Erik's idea, as was Christine's headstone reading _Christine Daaé_ instead of _Christine de Chagny._

* * *

The three filed home in silence. Gustave, still crying, ran to his room and shut the door. Erik pulled off the veil, revealing the mask beneath it. He walked into the kitchen in silence, then shuffled open a cabinet and took out a glass. Raoul walked past him, their shoulders bumping, and the glass slipped from his hand and shattered on the floor. A thousand tiny glass pieces below their feet.

Erik stared down for a long moment, then lowered onto his knees and brushed his fingers through the shards. One poked into his finger and stayed there. Then he began to sob. A loud, wet inhale, a hard, dry exhale. He put his hands on either side of his forehead, fingers snaking through his hair, then grabbed a handful of glass shards and let them fall back to the ground.

"Why do you ruin everything?" He asked, still looking at the floor but clearly talking to Raoul.

"I'll get a broom-"

"No!" He slammed a flattened palm against the cabinet. "Stop acting like everything is alright. You just buried your wife, how can you possibly be so calm? Did you ever even care about her at all?"

"How can you say that? You know I did. What is wrong with you?"

"This is all your fault. All of it. You did this. You got her murdered. You hurt her and you abused her and you got her murdered. You killed the only person who ever once cared anything about me. I hope you're happy."

" _I_ hurt her?" He blinked, stuttered. " _I_ abused her? _I_ got her murdered? Do you even hear yourself? I was a bad husband, I know that. You know I know that. But you killed her. You manipulated and destroyed her because you're a selfish, evil, soulless whore with no concern for anyone but yourself."

Erik laughed, angry and hard. "Yes, I was wondering when you were going to play that card. It's the last one you haven't used, right?" He rose from his knees, fists at his sides. "So I'm the whore? Me? Do you know how quickly you climbed into bed with me? How quickly you let your guard down because you were just so desperate for a man, any man, even one you despised?"

"I will not stand here and listen to your lies. You manipulated me. You tricked me, you…snaked your way up inside me like some sort of poison."

"You're placing an awful lot of blame on me and hardly any on yourself."

"Because it's your fault!" He shouted, frustrated and furious, jabbing a finger at Erik. "It's all your fault! You manipulated me, you used me to get to her, and when it was over you discarded me like I was worthless."

"I never manipulated you. Anything you felt for me, you felt on your own. I offered myself to you and you accepted. That was your own decision. I never made you say yes." He held up his hand, twitched his ring finger. "I never made you buy me this ring. You bought it because you were appreciative. Because deep down, you cared for me, and you wanted me to know that. Did you even see yourself that day? You were absolutely _lovesick_."

"You're delusional if you think I ever felt anything but disgust for you." He said, Erik walking towards him, circling like a shark.

"Why did you say yes, then? Oh, right, because I manipulated you with…what? My charming personality? My irresistible good looks?" He smiled, flashing one nasty front tooth. "If I did manipulate you, could you really blame me? You're so pathetic. Just one kiss from an _evil, soulless whore_ and you've been reduced to a spineless, weak, whimpering idiot. Oh, wait!" He threw his hands in the air. "You've always been that! That's why you like me so much, isn't it? Because I see you for who you really are."

He turned from him. He felt like crying. Erik couldn't see that.

He inched closer, wrapped his arms around Raoul's chest and put a chin on his shoulder. "Do you actually think anyone else would ever accept you like I do?" He slid one cold hand under Raoul's shirt, the other down his pants and between his thighs. "Now that you've been with me, you can never go back to pretending. You'll be crawling back, apologetic and desperate." He traced his fingers over his cock, hard and slick. "It must've been so awful," He whispered in his ear, lips tickling his earlobe, his legs going weak and numb below him. "Ten years with a woman. Ten years of pretending to like kissing her, touching her. That smell between her legs making you queasy as you pretend she's actually making you feel anything. You're so tired of pretending, aren't you?" Raoul's back arched, fitting perfectly against Erik's body.

"Don't talk about her, please."

"Ten years wishing she'd just disappear. Vanish. Ten years of lying unmoving in bed with her, thinking about anything to get you through it. Some handsome tutor from childhood, one of those pretty ballet boys." He stroked and rubbed harder. Raoul gasped. "I wonder if that's when you first realized you wanted me. When she was fucking you, and you could only think of being soaking wet, tied up, my hands around your throat?"

"Erik, no, stop-" He opened his eyes slightly, tried to pull out of Erik's grip and failed. Something felt horribly wrong.

"I bet you were almost relieved, weren't you?" He scraped a sharp nail across his chest, hard enough to draw blood. "When you saw her dead."

Raoul opened his eyes completely, shoved Erik off his back and spun around. Seeing red, thinking _youevilwhore_ , he lunged forward and grabbed Erik by the throat, slamming him against the wall. The house shook, a framed photo smacked face-first into the floor. Erik just smiled, wide and mad and almost excited.

"What are you going to do?" He gasped out. "Kill me? Go ahead." He put his own hands over Raoul's, made no move to pull them off, instead pushed with them. "Kill me. Kill me like you killed her. If you hate me so much, if you really feel nothing for me, why don't you?"

Tears slid down Raoul's face and he squeezed tighter, almost lifting Erik off the ground, shoving him up the wall. Erik was still smiling, but his eyes, red and teary, looked pitiful and hollow.

"Go on! Kill me! Finally do something right in your life and kill me! I'm asking you to! Are you so stupid you can't even follow simple instructions?"

Raoul tightened his grip, glad to finally not be on the receiving end of a strangulation. Erik's face went slightly blue. He gasped and gagged, still holding Raoul's hands, still smiling wildly.

Raoul pulled his hands away and Erik fell to the ground.

He turned away, crying, looking down at his hands like they had disobeyed him, like he didn't have complete control. Erik panted behind him.

"I wish I did kill you," He said, turning around to look at Erik, heaving and still slightly blue and for once, looking confused, still processing what happened. "Ten years ago, I wish I killed you, when you broke into my room. That's my biggest regret in all of this. That I didn't blow your jaw off. I wish I had."

Erik leaned his head back, looked up at Raoul. He rubbed his fingers over the red marks on his throat.

"So do I."


	10. confine

Two days after the fight, after Erik's outburst, things were tense and silent. Not that they weren't already, but now, he was actually frightened. And worse, he felt guilty. The feeling of Erik's pulse beneath his hands, getting slower and slower, and if he squeezed a little longer, a little harder, Erik would be gone and he'd be a murderer. The fact he stopped considering killing Erik a necessity he well-deserved and started considering it actual murder was worrisome.

He told himself again and again that Erik was a liar, an insane, manipulative liar who would probably kill him at the slightest annoyance, when Raoul was late coming home or broke another glass, but felt a sharp pang every time he did. When you're lying so poorly you can't even convince yourself.

Every time he thought about leaving, he was pulled back into a sight from a few nights ago: Erik had fallen briefly asleep on the sofa, slumped against its back, his head against the wall, coat shoved up around his jaw. He looked peaceful, his face soft and plain, not the angry scowl it usually was. His arm was outstretched, hanging over the edge of the sofa, like he'd fallen asleep waiting for someone to take his hand.

He looked harmless.

Vulnerable and human. Unrecognizable from how he'd been in Paris. For the first time, Raoul felt real sympathy for him. He wanted to comfort him. To take care of him. He hoped one day, Erik would drop the facade with him, be a real person, not a character, and let himself be comforted. No manipulation, no angle, no end objective. Just a realness he so far hadn't felt with Erik. Erik, telling him about his past and about Christine and maybe crying a bit, so Raoul could brush away his tears. He got the nasty urge to take his hand. It was that ugly white-knight complex of his again, the one that had got him in rather unpleasant situations in the past.

He had to leave. Not leave-leave, leave the city, like he planned on, just get out of that mossy house and his dank bed and Erik's prodding him with needles and washcloths. The only time he saw Erik was at dinner ( _It's important we eat together, like a family, for his sake_ ) and when he woke up to being taken care of (what Erik called it), but he was silent and dissatisfied the whole time. In that aspect, he was a bit like Christine.

Today, he woke to Erik unbuttoning the top of his shirt while he slept, sliding his fingers into the grooves of his neck, pressing into his collar bone. He rolled over and remembered suddenly, _I've slept with this man_. Erik had seen him at his most vulnerable. The very thought made him shudder. He'd laid in bed with Erik, wrapped around his arm, told him tragic tales of poor him and his wife he wanted gone. Erik must appreciate that irony, the one good thing to come out of Christine's death. Even in such a terrible time he was finding things to lord over his head.

A few minutes after he was certain Erik was gone, he was up, dressed and out the door.

Apparently, Erik's real home wasn't on Coney Island and was nowhere near Phantasma. He lived in a decent-sized, two-story townhouse in Manhattan, because he rarely was actually needed at the park. Madame Giry did most of the work.

He barely made it a block and a half when a young female reporter stopped him. She looked fresh out of high school. A bright, bubbly young girl who couldn't know the first thing about reporting.

"Mister de Chagny!" Her voice was light and bouncy with a Brooklyn accent. "Can I ask you a few questions?" She had a camera under her arm and a pen and paper in her hand.

"Actually, I'd rather not. I have somewhere to be."

"This'll only take a minute," She smiled. He was sick of all these women- Christine, Meg, his dead sisters- trying to make his decisions for him, trying to tell him what to do.

She flipped open a spiral notebook, ready for him to speak. "What do you make of your wife's sudden death a few days ago? I don't mean to insinuate anything, but I've heard talk that doesn't paint you in such a good light. That it wasn't as much of an accident as the police report said…"

He wanted a slap her, this ignorant little girl who seemed giddy about Christine's death, excited to finally have something interesting to write about.

"I think it's disgusting you would even consider I would do that. You people need to wake up and stop trying to make a story off of my wife's death. What happened was an accident, do you understand? Ask the police. Ask the man who dug my wife's grave. Ask the one who built her coffin. But stop asking me."

He was rather proud of his outburst. After all, he'd been crafting in his head for days, waiting for an excuse to tell off some frenzied reporter and leave them speechless and impressed and hopefully, a little scared. This one just looked excited, scribbling down his words.

"Mhm. And what do you have to say about the rumor you were having an affair, up until a few days before your wife's death? And that you're currently living with the woman you were involved with?"

He kept his fists at his sides, staring at the still-smiling reporter with open hatred. He hated her. He hated all these parasitic reporters prying into his life, sliding their claws inside and pulling his tragedy open. Things were hard enough without feeling like a spectacle.

"I'm done talking to you. If you'll excuse me, you're in my way." He said, shoving past her.

"And can I quote you on that, Mister de Chagny?"

* * *

He went to the ocean. It took a good thirty minutes to find it and another to get there. An ugly patch of sand and rocks, a rickety little pier, grey waves washing litter onto the beach.

He went to the ocean, stood in the sand, stared at the water and thought. He thought, This cannot really be happening. This can't be right. Everything had gone so wrong, it had to be a joke.

Phillipe would not be in this situation. Phillipe would know how to keep his wife happy, how to keep her alive. Phillipe wouldn't be suspected of setting up his wife for murder (which Raoul didn't do), Phillipe wouldn't be suspected of having an affair (which Raoul did do). Like a child on his first day of school who missed his mother, he thought, _I wish Phillipe was here. He would fix everything. He'd make things right again._

But Phillipe was long dead and never coming back, and for possibly the first time in his life, Raoul had no one to help him out of his mess. He could hear his dead wife laughing, _Oh, Raoul, you always were babied by your family, I guess it's finally time you take some responsibility_ , then he realized it wasn't just Christine, it was her and his sisters and Meg Giry. Little Meg Giry, how did she fit into all this? Why had she shot Christine? Did she mean to? Did she regret it? He remembered the tantrum, the viciousness in her voice, the warning in the bar, insisting they both leave. She'd bragged about how close she and Erik were, moony and proud. She knew him. She had to. She had to know how to deal with him. Ten years with him, she had to know him better than Raoul or Christine ever could. With that closeness had to come a sense of entitlement to Erik's affection and trust. She'd screeched at Christine, _Why do you get everything that's mine?_ Maybe her affection for Erik was the same as a child's affection for her sisters favorite doll. Something she wanted simply because she couldn't have it.

* * *

Manhattan State Hospital was a rather inconspicuous name for an insane asylum. The residue of Blackwell's Island Lunatic Asylum, closed in 1894. Seventeen stories tall, beige and blocky, like a child had piled bricks repeatedly on top of each other.

Meg Giry was admitted to the Manhattan State Hospital by her mother, and after angry sessions with several doctors, was found unfit to live in society, a danger to herself and others, and suffering from hysteria, mania, and suicidal impulses. (That's what the nurse said, at least.)

A scattering of patients and nurses, the occasional Doctor floating through. Most of the patients women, sitting on couches and chairs in drug-induced compliance, medically subdued, their eyes glassy and tired. Across the room a nurse called the "visiting sanctuary", Meg sat in a rocking chair, holding a bundle of yarn and two knitting needles in her hands. Her hair was loose and messy around her shoulders, her eyes ringed with gray, dressed in a papery white dress, like some John William Waterhouse painting come to life.

He sat in the chair next to her. She made no acknowledgement of him. He cleared his throat and she looked up, narrowed her eyes, assessed him, and went back to her knitting. The needles, he now noticed, were made of plastic with round, dull points.

"We aren't allowed anything sharp here." She explained, noticing him noticing them.

"Meg, I'm-"

"Sorry?" She interrupted. "Good to know."

He didn't intend on saying sorry and was glad she filled in the blanks herself. One less guilty person to apologize to.

They sat in silence, her messily knitting, eyes downcast. The left sleeve of her dress had slid off her shoulder, several flowers woven into her hair. A sheath of matching flowers lay beneath her chair. She saw him studying her.

"My doctor makes me wear this," She said. "He likes his female patients pretty, I suppose. I think they were excited when I arrived. I'm their Ophelia come to life." She shoved the blocky needle through a hole in the yarn.

He said nothing, just nodded. He hardly remembered who Ophelia was, what the connection was to her costume, but the idea of doctors making her play dress-up made his skin crawl. A lost memory floated into his mind: Madame Giry's story. Erik and the sideshow.

"Why are you here?" She asked finally.

"I wanted to know if you were alright."

She made a sound almost like a laugh. "Of course you did. I'm fine, by the way. I'm just wonderful. My mother locked me in a madhouse and refuses to even look at me anymore, because I killed the daughter she wishes she had. My oldest friend is dead. The only man I ever loved wishes it was me instead. So yes, I'm just peachy. Now, why are you really here?"

He sighed. Across the room, a patient smacked a syringe out of a nurses hand.

"I need to talk to you."

"About?"

He looked at her despairingly. She didn't look back.

"Why?" He asked, voice shaking. "Why did you do it?" He didn't specify what it was, he didn't need to.

She sighed and sat her knitting down, finally looking at him. He felt small under her gaze.

"Do you want to know why, _Monsieur de Chagny_?" She asked, drawing out his name mockingly. He nodded.

"Then you're asking the wrong person. We both know it's not my fault she's dead, or yours, or his." The word his was heavy and dark. "It's her own. You're placing the blame on everyone but the person you should. You didn't set her up to be killed, he's not so clumsy he got her shot with a poorly-worded sentence, and she certainly wasn't murdered by a crazed lunatic." She said, like she was repeating something drilled into her head. "You understand. You know I'm right. Sometimes, women marry bad men-" Here she jabbed a finger at him. "-and have affairs with worse ones, and think they won't hurt them because they love them, and they get killed because of their own stupid choices."

Hot tears rose in his eyes. He white-knuckled the arms of his chair.

"How can you possibly say that?" He said, his voice strangled.

"Because it's true." She said.

"So you don't feel guilty at all?" Of course she didn't, this selfish, attention-seeking little girl.

"Yes, I feel guilty," She shot, words sharp and piercing. "Do you have any idea how guilty I feel? Everyday I have these doctors, these snobby, rich men like _you_ , sitting me down and making me tell them about it, how it felt to shoot her, to see her die. And it's like I'm dying every time I tell it. So yes, I feel guilty. But I'm not blind. It's her fault too. She shouldn't have been there. It was her choice."

Except it wasn't her choice. It was never really her choice.

She noticed him shaking his head, thinking _you're delusional._

"I knew you wouldn't listen to me. I tried to warn you before, to take her and leave, and you ignored me, and look what happened."

He nodded sadly, looked at the ground, forgetting to be angry with her. "I know," _You're right_ , he wanted to say, but didn't. Too proud.

"Listen to me now, then," She leaned forward, elbow on the rocking chairs arm, staring into his eyes. "Take my advice and leave. Get out of that house. Get away from him."

"I can't leave, Meg," He said, wishing she would ever just understand. "I wish I could. But I have to take care of my son."

"I know that's not the only reason. You care about him. Don't be embarrassed, I do too. It's what he does. He gets inside you. He knew how I felt and he used it against me. Leaving his hand on my shoulder just a bit too long when asking me to work four more shows, because he knew how I _adored_ him, how I would do anything he asked. He ruined me, he ruined her, and now he's ruining you too. He's all over you. You even smell like him."

"So? What's your point? I can see past his tricks, believe me."

"My point is," She said, rolling her eyes. "He's lost the _love of his life_ , the closest thing he ever had to a mother, and of course, me, his only friend. You're all he's got left."

"No, you see, he was more than willing to throw me aside. He doesn't care about me."

"But that was before," Meg clicked. "When he still had Christine."

He sighed. "You talked to her. Before she…" He gestured with his hand. "You saw her. How was she? How did she seem?"

Meg's face contorted in confusion, her mouth twisted down, tight-lipped.

"She was very unhappy, I think."

He stayed silent then put his head in one hand, squeezed his eyes shut, wanted to cry.

"I just want to take it all back. I want it all right again. I need to make things right, Meg. But I don't even know where to start."

"Are you still living with him?"

He looked up and nodded, wiping a tear from his left eye.

"I'd start by getting as far away from there as possible."

Then she went back to her knitting. Across the room, the nurse finally managed to subdue her patient with a needle to her neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been forever since i've updated !! sorry !! a couple things:  
> 1\. credit for the idea people would suspect raoul for christine's death goes to chris--daae.tumblr.com.  
> 2\. the asylum meg is staying at is a real place, now called manhattan psychiatric center.  
> 3\. that thing about doctors dressing female patients up as ophelias? that's true. that's a real thing that actually happened.


	11. divorce

It rained the whole walk home. He didn't feel it. Meg and her cryptic warnings buzzed through his brain. He wanted to break something. He wanted to drink, too. He'd been too busy the past several days to remember to rely on alcohol, and now that want was back, the news from something to dull the edge, something to hide behind like a thin layer of film.

Meg was an idiotic little girl, and not only that, she was legally insane. Her warnings meant nothing. He had to remember that.

When he got home (when did he start calling Erik's townhouse _home_?) Erik was sitting in the kitchen, on a chair he'd dragged into the middle of the room. The record player in the other room was whirring, a muffled despairing soprano filling the house. He wore his black robe again.

"Where did you go?" He asked, stern with a touch of frightened.

"Out." He answered. No other explanation necessary.

"You should've told me," Erik was staring emptily at the wall in front of him, fiddling with the ring on his finger. "I got home and you weren't here. I was worried you'd left, that you were upset about the other day." He turned to Raoul, his eyes wide. "I'm not angry at you. You don't need to be afraid of me anymore. I won't hurt you. I hardly even hate you anymore. Now that she's gone…I just don't see the point."

It's when Raoul noticed the open bottle of wine on the counter he realized Erik was slightly intoxicated. Not drunk, really, just a bit tipsy.

"I really am sorry about what I said. I was just so upset. It happens at times…I'm not like other people, you see, I can hardly control myself when something upsets me. And when that happens, and I'm with someone- Christine, Madame Giry…they get terrified, like I'm some sort of animal. But you actually fought back." He reached a hand out, gesturing Raoul to come forward.

"I've been treated so poorly in the past. I'm still getting used to this. I'm very…" He gritted his teeth. "Fragile, you see. I need you to treat me delicately. Like a doll." He nodded, as if he was agreeing with himself.

Raoul nodded, too tired to argue with him. He walked to the counter, stared at the bottle. Considered it.

"You can have some, if you'd like."

He shook his head and was turning around when he felt Erik behind him, drape his arms on his shoulders, wrists hooked in the front, put his chin on his shoulder. He was too tired to fight him off.

"You'll feel better. Trust me." He unhooked one arm and reached for a glass, filled it halfway with cherry red wine, slid it in front of him. Raoul stared down at it fixedly. In the other room, the soprano seemed to be growing louder: _Un po' per celia, un po' per non morire._

"Why don't you drink it?" He whispered, his words slightly blurred at the edges. "You must be so tired. Let yourself relax. You'll feel so much better. Why don't you…?"

_Al primo incontro, ed egli al quanto in pena, chiamerà, chiamerà, "Piccina, mogliettina, olezzo di verbena."_

Raoul drank it, swallowed angrily like he was trying to prove a point. He could feel Erik smiling.

"Will you stay with me, Raoul, love?" It was the first time he called him _love_ and it didn't fit him at all. "You're not going to leave again, are you?"

_I nomi che mi dava al suo venire._

Raoul nodded his head, the booze giving him the courage to admit it. He was not going to leave because he wanted to stay. With this wicked, ruined man who he willingly let manipulate him. It felt so good to say it: He was staying with Erik and it was his choice and no one else's. He was staying because he couldn't imagine a life without him. He could not be himself without him to fill him, average and boring and everything else he said, with his strange, crazed, otherworldly self. He was a half-finished, empty man and Erik encircled and surrounded him and fit into him perfectly. Like they were made to compliment each other, all their flaws fitting perfectly like some ugly, jagged, never-finished puzzle.

"Good," He buried his face in the crook of Raoul's neck, kissing lightly. "Would you like to sleep in my bed tonight, Raoul? Or I, in yours?"

_Tutto questo avverrà, te lo prometto. Tienti la tua paura, io con sicura fede l'aspetto._

"Yes. Whatever you want."

He followed Erik to his room, climbed in bed with him for the first time since That Night. Erik's room was dark, too dark to see anything but the bed, no canopy this time, but a dozen pillows blossomed from the top like blood spurting from a heart.

Erik pulled him onto his lap on the bed, kissed his neck and undid his coat. Raoul put his hands on his shoulders, pulled off the robe, felt the scars beneath it. He leaned down, kissed at the raised lines, then reached up and brushed a finger over his mask. Erik let him, let the mask clatter to the floor. Erik pulled him farther onto the bed, pushing him against the mattress and kissing him with his cold, grotesque lips, like a spider skittering up his neck.

Downstairs, the record was skipping, repeating the same line over and over again: _Perché non fugga piu, io t'ho ghermita…ti serro palpitante, sei mia._

 _Ti serro palpitante, sei mia._  
_Ti serro palpitante, sei mia._  
_Sei mia. Sei mia. Sei mia._

Outside, the rain began to pour.

* * *

When they were done, Erik administered him his medicine, slipping the needle gently into his forearm, and within minutes he felt dizzy and sick, and then Erik was comforting and kissing him, and then he was asleep.

He woke at 3:47 AM, Erik fidgety but sleeping beside him. He slipped out of bed, the floorboards creaking beneath him. He messily pulled on his clothes and left Erik's room.

The house was dark and achingly silent, Erik's record long ended, except for a light, floating noise from downstairs. Like a hoard of moths shuffling together. Crying. Gustave was crying.

Gustave sat stiffly in the middle of his bed, arms around himself, crying silently. The Meg Doll lay shattered on the floor.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Raoul asked, kneeling down beside the bed, putting a hand awkwardly on Gustave's back. He realized: he'd never comforted Gustave after a nightmare before. That was always Christine, softly consoling him and kissing his cheek while he either watched from the doorway or slept through it.

"She's broken," Gustave sobbed, staring at the doll. "I ruined his doll. Please don't tell him. He'll be so mad."

"No, it's- it's alright, he won't be mad. It's just a doll."

"No-" Gustave shook his head. "It's me. I ruin everything. You two are always fighting and it's my fault. I'm sorry, Father."

Raoul wrapped his arms around him, a father-and-son gesture for once in his life, pulled him close and rocked him.

"Don't ever say that. It's not your fault. It's mine. It's his. But it's not yours."

Gustave nodded, tears soaking into Raoul's sleeves.

"Do you still want to leave, though?" He asked. Raoul pulled away.

"No," He put his hand over Gustave's. "We will stay together, the three of us, and we will do our best to take care of you. I promise."

* * *

Back in Erik's bed, he tossed and turned through a hazy hour of half-sleep, unable to fall back under.

He went back downstairs, Gustave's sobbing subsided, the rain still pouring. He drank more cherry wine and wondered about, studying the staircase and the wallpaper and the furniture like they were artwork in a museum. It was like he'd never seen any of it before.

He stopped in front of the bookshelf, ran his fingers over the old spines and occasionally pulled one out, read the cover and put it back. On the very bottom shelf, a dusty series of title-less books, blank-covered except for two years on each. 1886-1889. 1889-1893. 1893-1903. 1903-1907.

Journals. Erik's journals. Erik's busy, confusing, labyrinth brain explained in black and white from the Phantom himself.

Most entries were dreadfully dull, some only a few sentences long. They grew longer and longer as Christine was mentioned more and more. He skipped most of them, not wanting to read about his dead wife all those years ago, when she was still happy and alive. He stopped on one entry.

_November 17th, 1894._

_Christine has a new friend and that is all he is. I don't know his name and I don't plan on learning. He is a new patron and some rank of nobility. On leave from the navy. He is young and handsome and sweet and chaste like a bride of Christ. He brings her roses after every performance._

_I hate him. I hope he leaves soon, goes back to sailing or his mansion or wherever he came from. Christine will grow tired of him soon enough. He is dull and bland, his head is empty as a flower vase, he can't offer her anything stimulating, not like music can. Not like I can._

_He will leave soon. He is only a phase. I need to remember that or I'll loose my mind with worry._

He couldn't believe those descriptions had ever once fit him. He flipped several pages ahead, stopping when he saw his name.

_November 20th, 1894._

_Viscount Raoul de Chagny is still here. Yes, that is his full name and title. I hate it._

_He won't leave Christine alone. He follows her everywhere, he even hid in her dressing room once. It makes me sick. I hope she sees past his charm soon, isn't blinded by his pretty face. I know she will. She is smart, sharp-witted, she's always deep in thought. Not like him. Idiot._

Another:

_November 23rd, 1894._

_Raoul de Chagny is absolutely fascinated by me. I do still hate him, but I almost find his attitude sweet. He asks Christine about me every chance he gets (She's said very little. She's such a good girl). He is intent on catching me, stopping me. It's adorable, how frustrated he gets when he fails._

_I watched him sleeping the other night. His house is vast and shining. I bet he's gotten lost before. He saw me, but he couldn't prove it was really me. No one believed him. He fired a shot at me and just barely missed. So adorable. Like a stupid little kitten._

_He is completely and utterly enamored by me. Or at least, the version of me in his head. To him, I am some handsome, well respected tutor. I don't like how good it makes me feel, to be regarded as something so pure and human, even under the veil of ignorance, even by him._

_But he will not find out who, what I really am. He cannot. I won't let him. All his respect for me, his view of me as a worthy opponent, will vanish and I will lose my power over him forever._

Raoul laughed to himself. That plan certainly failed.

_November 24th, 1894._

_He still hasn't left. I was so certain he'd be gone by now, why isn't he gone? Why can't Christine see past him? He is so empty and boring and frivolous, there is absolutely nothing inside of him worth discovering. He is nothing. He's so irrelevant I feel like he could disappear._

_But of course, if the Opera's precious, rich little patron disappeared, there would be such a search to get him back, making him disappear wouldn't even be worth it. Just a reminder of how adored he is._

_He doesn't even really love her. Not as a human being. He only proposed after she pretended to be afraid beneath Apollo's Lyre (she's such a wonderful actress!). He simply wants to be her savior, to be the knight in shining armor who rescues the poor, trapped princess._

_Can he not just go find some other girl? There are a thousand women in Paris, just as pretty and empty as him, why has he taken the only one who could ever think anything kind about me? Why?_

_I wish he'd do something bad to her. Nothing too terrible, just something to show her what kind of man he really is. I have known so many men like him before. He will get bored of her in a few years and he'll run to the arms of a new, fresh ingenue who still excites him. I wish he'd yell at her, hit her, something, anything! How can my smart, quick Christine be acting so foolish? What do I have to do to show her how irrelevant he is?_

Raoul was starting to feel uncomfortable, squirmy. He recognized this attitude. He knew what was coming soon. He tossed the journal to the ground, like it was tainted, opened one from much later. 1907-1909. His most recent.

_September 15th, 1909._

_I am something I haven't been in years, perhaps ever. I am…happy. I actually am. I am smiling as I write this, my face feels stiff and unnatural. I'm nervous to say it, because I'm worried if I acknowledge my happiness, it will be ripped from me like it always is._

_But I have earned it. I have worked so hard. I deserve it. It's mine. I've been waiting my entire life and now it's finally here._

_Everything is going so perfectly! Christine is so happy to see me again. She lets me touch her, like she did ten years ago, which is more than I could ever ask for. But even when she says yes, I feel a bit guilty. It's like touching a wedding gown with tar-covered fingers. Like when I pull my hand away, her perfection will be stained and marred forever._

_But I don't want to discus that right now! In fact, I actually don't want to discuss Christine at all. I know, unbelievable. What I want to discuss is much more shocking: Raoul de Chagny. I have made a deal, an exchange, a partnership with him. I finally regained that control over him, the control I had when he still thought me worthy of enemy-ship, and it only took a bit of following him around and a bit of using his secrets against him._

_I am quite happy to say I was completely correct about Monsieur de Chagny. Sweet, Caring Raoul has vanished. Angry, Drunk Raoul has taken his place. I am so excited. I was right! I knew what kind of man he really was. I knew he'd end up like this, after the honeymoon phase ends and he is left with her, with this other person he knows nothing about. Not really. Not like I know her._

_I have a plan (that is how desperate I am: I have become a man who makes plans). I have a plan and it will get him out of the way for good without having to do the dirty work myself. That was the original plan, kill him and hope Christine isn't too upset, but I know she would be, for some reason. It will send him limping back to Paris and Christine and I shall be happy together like I knew we would be. He will learn from this. He has never truly suffered. Not like I have, not like Christine has. I want him weak and sorry and helpless. I want him to know how it feels, to be abused and thrown away._

_All I have to do is wait, let Raoul do whatever he wants with me, and wait for him to become lovestruck and fawning again._

_It won't take long. I can be very convincing. I've had plenty practice, after all._

_September 16th, 1909._

_I thought this experience with Raoul would make me feel powerful, but I suppose I was wrong. I don't feel powerful at all, when he comes to my room, aroused and sweating and treats me like some sort of harlot. Something to be used and filled and ignored when done. I do not like it._

_Sex with him disgusts me. He's so pathetic and spineless. He lets me do whatever I want to him, whimpering and sobbing the whole time. I hit him several times, and he actually liked it. What fun are insults and beatings if he wants it?_

_Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps I have no power over him after all. I wonder if I ever did._

_September 18th, 1909._

_I was wrong._

_He walked in on us today, on me and her. For those first few seconds, seeing him in that doorway with her on my lap, I was terrified. I hope he didn't see it. He stormed out soon after, and then, within a few hours, where is he? Back at my room, and what has he brought me? A ring! A beautiful, glistening ring with a bulbous black gemstone. Does he even notice how stricken he is with me? It's sad, almost._

_Meg Giry has warned him to leave, the obedient little employee she is, and I know he will take that advice when it's too late. When Christine won't leave with him because she's in love with me. I wish Meg hadn't been so rude about me, though. I don't like her. She is such a jealous, petty child who doesn't know when to shut up. Which isn't surprising, pretty women are often like that. I'm so lucky my Christine is not!_

Again, Raoul flipped several pages ahead. He couldn't take whatever Erik had to say about his wife's death. He simply couldn't do it. Literally, in some cases, because Erik's handwriting had gone messy and scribbled, like he was writing with a numb hand, struggling to hold onto the pen.

_September 22nd, 1909._

_Raoul is angry with me. I know he blames me for what happened, even if it's Meg Giry's fault. He won't touch me anymore. I must sound like Christine, those last few years of their marriage: why doesn't my husband love me anymore?!?_

_I'm worried he might try to leave, take my son away from me. I can't let that happen. I know, I know, it's what I originally wanted, but what I originally wanted is irrelevant now. I will have to make-do with what I have, or else I might get tired and try to off myself again, and I really am not in the mood for Raoul to find me in the bathtub with slit wrists._

_If I die, that means I'm weak and have let the world kill me, and he will never learn his lesson, which he still needs to desperately. I will not let him go home with no repercussions for waltzing into my life and ruining everything. He needs to know I am not some whore for him to fuck once and then forget about._

_He will not leave if I keep taking care of him. He physically can't. I've been giving him something to keep him docile, pliant, submissive. He wouldn't last a day without me to make sure he's alright._

The journal slipped out of his grip, fell off his lap onto the carpet. The syringe. The syringe filled with nauseous green medicine that he always felt sick and sleepy after taking. It wasn't medicine at all. Terror and realization opened above him like a storm cloud.

A loose leaflet of paper stuck out of the top of one journal. Dazed, he pulled it out.

A list of names. Most he didn't recognize, a lot were foreign, Arabic. After a long slew of names he couldn't pronounce, were the names _Joseph Buquet, Ubaldo Piangi,_ and then, directly below it in Erik's long, spinster fingers-handwriting, _Phillipe de Chagny._

He briefly recognized the first two names. Joseph Buquet, a stage hand at the Opera, and Ubaldo Piangi, a singer. Both of them dead. Both of them strangled to death by Erik. They shared no other connection.

And his brothers name was directly below them.

Phillipe de Chagny, his older brother, not _accidentally killed in a slip-and-fall,_ but _murdered by a lasso-wielding psychopath._

He heard heavy footsteps behind him and dropped the list.

"Raoul?" Erik asked, voice thick and sleepy. "Raoul, what are you doing with those?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUN DUN DUN. this was one of my fave chapters tbh. hope y'all enjoyed the insight into erik's brain. all the dates on the entries i made up/just took a wild guess for btw. oh! and the opera erik is listening to is madame butterfly. shout out if you recognized it and an even bigger shout out if you got why i chose it.


	12. even as you and i

Slowly, Raoul stood up, hands trembling. He turned and saw Erik staring, mask-less and black robed, eyebrows upturned in confusion.

"Raoul, what are you doing with my-" His gaze flickered to the floor, saw the piece of paper behind Raoul's feet.

"Oh," He said. "You found that."

Raoul stepped back.

"I can explain that, don't worry,"

"You killed my brother," Raoul whispered, maybe a question and maybe a statement. He didn't want it to be true.

"What?" Erik asked; _I can't hear you, speak up._

"You killed my brother," He pulled a hand through his hair, tears prickling his cheeks. "Didn't you?"

Erik pressed his lips together, put his hands behind his back, fake calm. "Yes. But, you need to understand, I had to…He broke into my home. I had no choice."

Raoul took another step back, shaking his head, chiding himself for being such a spineless, pliant fool. For ever falling for Erik and his games.

"You killed my brother! He was my only family and you killed him! God, when did you plan on telling me about this?"

"Hopefully never. You didn't need to know."

"I didn't need to know? My God, what is wrong with you? What is wrong with _me_? How could it have taken me this long to figure it out? I was going to live with you, for God's sake!"

"You still can! We can forget this, it was years ago, it doesn't matter anymore. Raoul, please, come here-" He stepped forward, arms outstretched. Raoul took a step back, sliding out of Erik's reach. He rushed out of the room, into the kitchen. He heard Erik's heavy footsteps following. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the record was starting up again, a buzzing soundtrack: _Io t'ho ghermita, ti serro palpitante, sei mia._

"Raoul!" Erik called after him, following him into the kitchen. "Raoul, please don't run from me. I think you're overreacting."

His whole body shook, his vision going blurry, like he was going to faint, suddenly feeling dizzy and tired again.

Erik reached for him, pulling him into an embrace that Raoul was too stunned to fight off. His brother. Erik murdered his brother.

"I know you want to leave, but please don't. You don't know how hard it will be without you. I wouldn't survive."

"Do you actually think I care about you anymore? You- you are a _murderer_."

"I've always been a murderer." Erik cooed, pressing his cheek to Raoul's back.

"You killed my brother. I can never forgive you for that. And you still think I'm going to stay with you?"

"Of course I do," Erik said, pulling away, crossing his arms. "You won't leave. You made up your mind already, to stay with me and be a family."

He laughed wryly, backed out of the kitchen, reached for the door and felt Erik seize his wrist in his bat-claw grip. He pulled him towards him, and suddenly he was kissing him, hot and desperate and pleading: _please, please stay with me, please don't leave me again._

Raoul let his eyes shut, leaned into the kiss for a few seconds, forgetting this thing that had its lips on his was the thing that murdered his brother and ruined his life. His eyes clicked open, tried to shove away but Erik kept him in place, a hand resting on the small of his back.

Erik removed one hand from his waist, reached into his pocket, and then the needle was back under Raoul's skin. He gasped, tried to shove Erik off and failed again. He forgot how much stronger Erik was than him.

Raoul reached blindly beside him, felt something sturdy and glass beneath his hand. A candy dish. The little candy dish that never had any candy in it, that sat on the table by the door.

Slowly at first, then hard and angry, he lifted the dish and slammed it into the side of Erik's head. Erik stumbled to the ground, hands loosely grasping at Raoul's clothes and came to a stop on the floor, one arm sprawled above his head. His chest rose and fell steadily, his eyes shut.

Already feeling drowsy from the medicine, a spot of Erik's blood trickling down his hand, he retreated out the door and into the rainy dark.

* * *

His eyes were already drooping shut before he was barely ten feet from the house. He swayed and stumbled, holding onto the sides of buildings to stay up, the mixture of Erik's medicine and wine creating an oily recipe for sickness.

He fell into a shallow alleyway and landed on his knees, let himself heave up the wine, stinging his throat coming back up. He put his head in his hands, leaned against a building.

He was so stupid. He was everything Erik said he was and more. He'd fallen for it, and worst of all, he still kept thinking of going back, faithful as a wife.

Because without Erik, who would he be? Who would he have become? Maybe he'd have been better, a sober, upright husband who loved his wife. He tried to imagine it and the images came up blurred, unfinished.

He literally could not imagine a life without Erik.

He let his eyes close, felt the rain drip-drip onto him, his clothes sticking to his body as he began to shiver.

* * *

He slept most of the next day, in that filthy alley, and woke up at dusk. His clothes were rank with sweat and rain water, his brain fuzzy, memories sliding in and out.

After everything lined up again, he knew where he needed to go.

* * *

Meg, lithium-stuffed and flower-woven, leaned against a large window pane, head resting on the glass, looking out at the rainy evening. She wore a white nightgown, no shoes, her messy hair down her back again.

"Something bad has happened, Meg." He said. She didn't acknowledge him, just stared blankly out the window.

"He killed him. He killed my brother, Meg. He told me. He killed him for no other reason than he wanted to, and he could, so he did. I can't stay with him anymore."

"You will, though." She said, almost bored, then turned to face him. "I'm done trying to help you."

He said nothing as Meg toyed with a loose daisy.

"I hope you know how heartbroken this makes me. I really cared about you, Raoul. I thought you were going to be alright." She reached her hand out, cupped his face, then dropped her arm back to her side.

"I tried to kill myself again yesterday," She said, like she was sharing some quirky tidbit. "My nurse found me drowning myself in the bath. I wish she hadn't saved me."

"That's horrible." He said, his tone unconvincing.

She shrugged. "That's life."

* * *

No money and nowhere to stay, he went back to that bar. The bar where Erik first found him. He ordered a whiskey and put his head in his hands.

A few hours later, closing time, and the bartender threw him out, him stumbling and shouting.

He fell into a back alley, drunkly spitting out _bastardbastardbastard_ , the night air falling around him in cold waves. He leaned against the wall, a trail of saliva running down the corner of his mouth, _bastardbastardbastardfuckingbastard_. His eyelids dropping closed, his head swimming, slick with cold sweat.

He woke hours later to clicking footsteps approaching, then he felt himself be lifted from his spot on the ground, bridal-style.

The next time he woke he was back in his room, warm and dry and safe. Or at least the illusion of safe. Like he could ever be safe living with that thing.

He rolled over, saw Erik in the low lamplight, scribbling something down. Erik looked up, smiled softly, and put a hand on Raoul's forehead, brushed the hair out of the way. He took out the syringe again, poked it into his forearm. Raoul let him.

For the first time, when he looked at Erik, he didn't feel he was looking at a mysterious, Byronic specter from underground, but instead a normal, human man. It was horrifying, but at the same time, oddly comforting. He was growing to understand Erik, to figure him out, to know what he thought and what he felt, to pick his fingers through Erik's muddled, dizzy, spider-brain. To know when to kiss him and when to stay away, when to talk and when to shut up.

Mindlessly, he reached out, feeling for Erik through his sleepy, drugged haze. He caught him by the wrist, held tightly, refused to let Erik go.

"I know you," He murmured, head lolling to the side, smiling softly.

Erik smiled back. "Of course you do."

"No," Raoul said. He pulled Erik closer, then unhanded his wrist, jabbed a finger at his chest, prodding him directly in the heart. "I know you. And I'm not letting you out of my sight again." Erik leaned away. Something flickered behind his eyes. Alarm, confusion, maybe even fear.

"You're stuck here. Just like I am."

He closed his eyes and turned from Erik.

In his dream, he saw Christine. She put her hands on his shoulders, forced him to look at her. She was decayed and rotten, half of her cheek caved in, eyes white and glossy, lips a muted shade of pale blue.

She shook him hard and said, _Look at what he did to me. Look at what he's doing to you. Look at yourself letting him._

He pushed her aside and turned away. He didn't want her warnings. He was so tired of being warned. He just wanted her gone.

* * *

_September 26th, 1909._

_Something horrible has happened. I have lost the trust I worked so hard to build. Raoul went through my things without my permission and found out things he didn't need to know. He ran away, but luckily, I have found him and brought him home. Perhaps it's good this happened, so we can have everything out in the open and start fresh, and he can learn to love me and forgive me and deal with me._

_I'm not an idiot. I know Raoul will never love me, not really, but I think if I work hard enough, if I continue to keep the mask on and be what he wants, I can at least convince him he loves me. I will give him what he wants (a living, breathing man!), and in return, he will give me what I want: a chance at a normal life._

_Raoul likes to be someone's hero, someone's savior. It's why he loved Christine, and it's why he got bored of her. He likes someone ruined, broken, someone to hold after a nightmare so he can feel like a better man than he is._

_And who more perfect to fill that absence of a ruined victim than I? At first, the very idea that this man pitied me I found repulsive. But that was so long ago, I don't have the luxury to pick and choose anymore._

_I know he has thought about comforting me, taking care of me, helping me ever since Madame Giry told him of my past. I hate her for telling him that; she had no right. If I wanted him to know, I would've told him._

_But oh well, I have plenty of other tales of my nearly comedically unpleasant life to tell him over our years together. But which shall he hear first? My mother who despised me, the closet with the mirror I was confined to when I was bad? Or the long version of the sideshow, my eyes shut until those men were done, me in my white shift, stained with blood and semen (the blood is mine, the semen is not). I've never told anyone that story. Not even Christine._

_Perhaps it's good I've never told anyone, because it will make telling Raoul so much more satisfying. I will cry and shudder and he will tenderly take me in his arms, treating me like I'm made of glass, and I will sob because oh, I've never been treated so kindly before, and he will kiss my tears away and congratulate himself for being so kind to poor, bruised, ruined Erik. I am his never-mended victim._

_Raoul and I fit together perfectly. I am only capable of causing pain and hurt, and he has a foolish, masochistic heart. I am ruined and abused and he is the hero to abused things everywhere. I am too much and he is too little and together, we balance each other out like…_

_Like music!_

_We are like a perfect, riveting symphony, when all the instruments that, if they slipped out of tune for just a moment, if one note was played wrong, would sound horrendous, sound beautiful and holy and just so right._

_There is, however, one thing that concerns me. The way he looked at me when he woke up, what he said. I can't stop thinking about it; it's driving me mad. The sureness in his voice, look in his eyes. I can envision this future together, a less than ideal one: him always watching me, controlling me, making sure I don't do something bad. I don't like it. Not at all. It's horrible to imagine being under his thumb like that; I'm supposed to be in charge. I'll never be able to let my guard down, always on edge, always watching him watching me. But, at the same time, it's rather sweet knowing he will always be watching me. Before he does anything, he'll take me into consideration: Would Erik like this? He'll kiss my cheek because if he doesn't, I might slit his throat. I'll spread my legs for him because if I don't, he may get bored and leave me. It's rather romantic, don't you think? Constant vigilance. My heart is racing at the thought of it. He said he knows me, and I think he just might._

_Our relationship has stumbled, slipped, and teetered past toxic right into nuclear. Those are interesting terms, don't you think? Toxic relationship, nuclear relationship. They create a fascinating image in the mind: the image of romance as radioactive waste. Which is exactly what we are._

_We deserve a warning label._

_When he wakes up, he will pout for days on end, refusing to talk to me or look at me or touch me, he may even try to leave again (though I think that issue has been handled)._

_But Raoul will get tired. He will get tired of being angry, tired of being lonely without me to comfort him, like he always gets tired of things, even things he once wanted. It will take months, even years to get him to trust me and love me, even with my oddities. If I can forgive his faults, I think he can certainly forgive mine._

_But it will happen. I will get my normal life I've dreamed of ever since I was a child. I mean, is that really too much to ask? Perhaps I am undeserving, but I don't care. Men much worse than me get to lead normal lives, so why don't I? I will get my Sunday walks in the park and my family dinners and my loving "husband" who will kiss my cheek and sleep next to me at night._

_I don't care how long it takes. I will get it. I'm a very patient man, you see, I've had to be to survive._

_I waited ten years. I can wait ten more._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's the end. thank you sm to everyone who read this, i hope y'all enjoyed it, lemme know what you thought of the ending bc i, personally, really like it.

**Author's Note:**

> i actually am still writing, despite the fact i haven't posted anything in months. i've been busy working on this !! unfortunately i'm not nearly as proud of it as i thought i would be, but i'm still publishing it, because it was really fucking hard and took forever and if i don't post shitty writing, idk if i'd ever post anything. plus i think all my fellow e/r shippers are just really desperate for content.  
> so, yes, this is the gay rewrite of lnd you never knew you wanted. or maybe you did, idk. in most lnd rewrites, the main thing changed is the characterization (i.e. raoul is not a jerk, erik is actually sympathetic, meg is not """crazy""", etc). i'm not gonna do that, because i want to take the poorly written characters into my own hands and hopefully portray them a little better. but they're still awful ppl. bc i love characters who are awful ppl. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ it's not going to be a love story in the traditional sense, so i'm sorry abt that. as the title implies, this is inspired largely by rudyard kipling's poem "the vampire" and the 1915 silent film "a fool there was". go watch and read those pls.  
> oh, and don't worry, i haven't abandoned or forgotten about the heathers au. i'll try to work on that again soon. promise.


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